A Smaller Art Brussels Represents a Shift in the Fair Ecosystem Toward a ‘Quality-First’ Approach

At the press conference for the 42nd edition Art Brussels fair (April 23–26), director Nele Verhaeren was refreshingly straightforward. “We’re not going to hide it,” she said, referring to the event’s smaller numbers: 138 participating galleries, or 26 fewer than last year. The downsizing has meant a shift toward a “quality-first” approach, per organizers, who framed the current edition as an opportunity to create a different kind of art-fair experience that allows for both seeing a lot of art, but also taking it slower.

Art Brussels “embraces a clear shift this year towards more focused, legible fairs in which the quality of the experience prevails over quantity,” according to a pre-fair press release. The reduction in exhibitors by 15 percent also meant that all the fair’s exhibitor booths could now fit in one hall of the Brussels Expo instead of 1.5 halls as it had in previous years. With mounting operational costs and ongoing geopolitical and economic tensions straining dealers, “galleries need to think twice about which fairs they want do to,” Verhaeren said. “Art is also becoming more of a lifestyle thing. It’s more oriented toward experience, which we are also doing. A lot of attention was put on augmenting the experience of the visitor—to make it joyful.”

The approach in Brussels signals a broader industry-wide rethinking of how to emerge stronger from a bloated contemporary art market that has resulted in slower sales. Despite a reported 2 percent increase for gallery sales in 2025, per the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, the contemporary art market cooled over the same period, as buyers moved toward safer options, such as Old Masters and Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

“The last two, three years, have been challenging years. We cannot hide that, but a lot of people are still doing very well, and there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s also not been a catastrophe,” said dealer Xavier Hufkens, the founder of an eponymous Brussels-based gallery. “You cannot be at heights all the time—it’s also not healthy.”

Since founding his gallery in 1987, Hufkens has stuck to Brussels, growing to three locations in the city over any international expansions. That strategy now seems particularly farsighted, as more galleries have been closing various outposts, and refocusing on local art markets.

Hufkens says it was a simple calculation, given that he would not be able to be everywhere at once. “I would not have been able to give that level quality if I had decided to [open multiple locations],” he said. A “regional [art scene] feels maybe a bit small, but it’s actually not.”

That, in a nutshell, sums up much about the Brussels art ecosystem, which is famous for being eclectic and of excellent quality. Full of affordable art spaces supported by dedicated collectors, and an unusually high concentration of mid-sized galleries, it is also an ideal laboratory for experimenting with new models. The term “local,” multiple dealers and collectors said, really means multi-national in Brussels, given the city’s geographically accessibly location and its own multi-lingual makeup.

With a new, major contemporary art museum, Kanal-Pompidou, due to open in November; a coalition regional government that finally formed after 600 days of deadlock; and a competitive 6 percent VAT on art sales that went into effect at the end of 2025, the moment for that experimentation seems ripe.

In “synergy” with the Kanal-Centre Pompidou opening, one of its senior curators, Devrim Bayar, selected seven large-scale works for a new section of Art Brussels called Horizons, located in the second hall where booths once stood. Similar to Art Basel’s Unlimited, and still in its early stages, there’s real potential for doing more in the freed-up space.

 “I love the new Horizons section,” Liege-based dealer Nadja Vilenne said. She is exhibiting a sculpture by Aglaia Konrad called Frauenzimmer, consisting of a series of large, tinted glass panes that become a kaleidoscopic, reflective device.

While she was pleased with this year’s edition, Vilenne admitted she did not participate in last year’s Art Brussels, “because I no longer want to do classic fairs—not at all! … Brussels needs new spaces that are more adapted to our current reality, and this is a good solution for me.”

Brussels-based collector Alain Servais is on the same page. He supports more affordable initiatives that foster artistic experimentation by alleviating costs to galleries. This is the time for a much-needed “right-sizing of the arts market: there must be alternatives and something cheaper,” he said. To that end, Servais feels a contemporary art price adjustment will meet the demands of a market that is still in sticker shock over ultra-contemporary artworks that auction for less than their primary market cost.

As one example, Servais pointed to a new pop-up fair in Brussels called Parloir that generated considerable buzz for its inaugural edition this year, held in an unused office building currently under construction. Organized by the gallery Gauli Zitter, it is hosting 11 galleries for a flat fee of 1,700 euros, until April 26. Among highlights was a group display by local gallery KIN, which includes a large collage by Marcel Odenbach, and a sculpture by Dan Vogt, titled GRBBBW (2025), of a nuclear family wearing a single, sewed-together army uniform. Prices ranged from 3,000 to 100,000 euros.

While some of Parloir’s participating galleries, like the three-year-old KIN, have participated in Art Brussels in the past, the new fair amounted to more of an energizing complement than a competitive threat. “It keeps [Art Brussels] on its toes,” said collector Frédéric de Goldschmidt, who supports the Brussels art scene via his art exhibition and co-working space, Cloud 7.

By day two of Art Brussels, it sounded like that toe-tipping effort had paid off. Dealers reported steady sales throughout the first day, along with a few, nearly sold-out booths or solo presentations, coupled with exposure to international collectors and institutions. This was nonetheless tempered by a handful of dealers who requested I come back at the end of the fair, when they hoped to have a better report of sales.

“We’re happy for a first day, because we’d never presented a lot of these artists at the fair before, so it was a discovery for many people. We had new collectors, and we placed works by all artists,” said Margaux Ducerisier, director at Andréhn-Schiptjenko (of Stockholm and Paris). She also said the local collector scene was a major reason the gallery chose to participate, bringing works ranging from 5,000 to 25,000 euros. They included one of Sabine Mirlesse’s jewel-dripping sculptures inspired by “divining rods,” which inhabit a light and airy space between witchery and science.

Elsewhere, the young Pizza Gallery from Antwerp, which is expanding to Ghent, nearly sold out its solo booth of sculptures by local artist Kasper De Vos. To make them, he has turned found, rusted oil bins into giant, twisted dried leaves, or chunks of rock into forms that resembled cheese. His works were priced between 1,200 and 8,000 euros, and one finely crafted wooden sculpture about the “crucifixion of the artist,” was acquired by the Museum of Ixelles, as part of the fair’s Discovery Acquisition Prize.

The Pizza Gallery booth was also packed with young visitors. There’s a good deal of head scratching about the next generation of Belgian collectors, multiple dealers said: Will they continue in their parents’ footsteps, albeit with new interests, or abandon art entirely? While the jury is still divided on that one, Hufkens confirmed a lot of young collectors visit his galleries.

“There’s always interest in art,” he said. “People need to express themselves, and we express ourselves most beautifully in artistic forms. … It doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s not killing anybody. It’s the most beautiful part of our human being. So yes, we see a lot of young people come in, and we see lot of very old people come in, which is nice too.”