Office Baroque Gallery

As a part of the Brussels Art Days, from 11 to 13 September, the gallery Office Baroque – based now only in Brussels since 2013 – and its director Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte will host 2 artists at their 2 art spaces: Michael Rey for his first individual exhibition at the Bloemenhofplein art space and Anke Weyer for her first solo with a suite of new paintings at the Ravensteinstraart art space.

As said before the Bloemenhofplein’s art space will host the Los Angeles-based artist Michael Rey who is known for making monochromatic wall works with panels entirely surfaced in plasticine clay and oil paint. His work functions beyond the creation of difference, when an over-reliance on what something is not — not “painting,” not “minimalism” — is used to skim the edges of that which we are otherwise incapable of approaching. Without the dulling comfort of default, each of Rey’s hollowed-out shapes is a first meeting, the terrifying thrill of finally clipping another being across this grand void, only to emit total nonsense; no just statements awaiting translation but befuddling, off-spectrum wavelengths. He recently had a solo in Milan and also in Los Angeles. His work was included in group exhibitions in St. Louis and in London.

The other art space – The Ravenstein’s space – will host the German artist Anke Weyer who lives and works in New-York. Her paintings are vivid and gestural, using energetic brush marks, drips, wipes and scrubbing to develop allusive forms and lines. Weyer layers acrylic and oil paints freely, creating surfaces that gleam and sometimes crumble. In her paintings she reframes and revitalises a historical form in a subversive way reminding you that she also grew up looking at the vernacular cultures of graffiti and punk.

“Anke Weyer – Two Islands Are Better Than One” will run from 11 September to 7 November at Office Baroque – Rue Ravensteinstraat 44, Brussels.

“Michael Rey” will run from 11 September to 24 October at Office Baroque – Bloemenhofplein 5 Place du Jardin aux Fleurs, Brussels.