Press coverage | Koen van den Broek at Ballroom Project Antwerp
Gallery Viewer about the Ballroom Project Antwerp this weekend and the works of Koen van den Broek that will be shown:
“Galerie Ron Mandos is excited to participate in the 2021 Ballroom Project, during the Antwerp Art Weekend from 13-16 May 2021. This year we’ll be showing the works of Koen van den Broek.
New Works by Koen van den Broek:
As an offshoot of his retrospective exhibition The Beginning at Galerie Ron Mandos in 2020 – a survey of twenty years of painting – Koen van den Broek created a new series of works for which he unearthed his personal archive of analogue photography. Restricted by this year’s travel bans, the Belgian artist was confined to using his old travel photos from the early 2000s. Analogue photography constitutes an integral part of Van den Broek’s practice. The use of perspective, color and lighting in the original photos are key to his choice of the painting’s subject.”
Click here to read the entire feature by Gallery Viewer.
Oscar van Gelderen in De Morgen over de bruisende kunstscene in Antwerpen en the Ballroom Project tijdens Antwerp Art Weekend:
“Donderdag 13 mei is het feest: het Antwerp Art Weekend barst los van donderdag tot zondag, en ook het Ballroom Project is die dagen te bezoeken; een jaarlijkse, door twee Antwerpse galeries (DMW en Base-Alpha) georganiseerde beurs – gecureerd door Yirka De Brucker – waaraan galeries uit Antwerpen, Brussel, Gent en Amsterdam meedoen. Locatie: de Borgerhub aan de Turnhoutsebaan, in het voormalige Gerechtsgebouw. En dan opent donderdag ook nog een nieuwe expositie van Luc Tuymans bij Zeno X Gallery: ‘Seconds’. Niet te missen.
Een jaar of tien geleden vertrok een aantal galeries van Antwerpen naar Brussel, dat hét nieuwe kunstmekka zou worden, want, zoals De Morgen indertijd schreef: ‘De kunsthandel op ’t Zuid is op zijn retour.’ Reden? De jarenlange renovatie van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunst, het vertrek van het Hoger Instituut voor de Schone Kunsten (HISK) in 2007 naar Gent, en een groot aantal galeries dat de deuren sloot. Galerie Kusseneers vertrok naar Brussel, evenals Van der Mieden. En de komst van internationale topgaleries als Mendes Wood en Barbara Gladstone deed vermoeden dat ook buitenlandse galeries Brussel hadden ontdekt.
Maar, zoals kunstenaar Lieven Segers snedig opmerkt: ‘De galeries vertrokken dan wel naar Brussel, maar de kunstenaars bleven in Antwerpen. En de kunst ook.’”
Klik hier om het gehele artikel over de bruisende kunstscene in Antwerpen te lezen, evenals het aankomende Ballroom Project dit weekend.
ABOUT Koen van den Broek
Koen van den Broek was born in 1973 in Bree, Belgium
He lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium
Born in 1973 in the Belgian town of Bree, Koen van den Broek first studied architecture and subsequently painting, initially at the Royal Academy of Antwerp and then at the Academy of Visual Arts of Breda. In his opinion, despite his painting studies, he has always remained an architect at heart. Ever since his student days, van den Broek has travelled constantly: around Europe, to the USA, Mexico and even to Korea. Always with his camera close to hand. He takes photos, a lot of photos, which all depict the same subject: the architectural interventions of man on the landscape.
Early in his career, Koen van den Broek developed a fascination for desolate landscapes in which man rarely appears, but always makes his presence felt. He depicts the traces left behind on roads, streets and houses that have been abandoned. The artist’s perception of roads and borders in barren lands has provided the painter with impulses that enable him to make his specific statement on landscape painting. Van den Broek operates by turning his face downwards and zooming in on the irregularities of the pavement, on curb stones and shadows. It is this very search for a subject of representation that led the artist on a journey closer to abstraction.
Works by Koen van den Broek are part of major public collections, including the LACMA, Los Angeles; SMAK, Ghent; M HKA, Antwerp; Busan Museum of Art, Busan; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle. His work has been presented at the Venice Biennial (2015 & 2017); White Cube, London; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp and Brussels; Seoul Arts Centre, Seoul; Kunsthalle, Mannheim; Royal Academy, London; MAS, Antwerp, and Kunsthal, Rotterdam; His work can also be found in numerous public spaces in Belgium, such as the Hofkamer, Antwerp; ‘t Zilte, MAS, Antwerp; AZSM Hospital, Mechelen, and the Provinciehuis, Hasselt.
