Brussels Gallery Weekend has announced its cancelation for Fall 24. Stating that … “various overlapping reasons have led to this decision,” the organisers explain in their post, ‘including this year’s financial situation, which made it difficult to organize the event with the quality conditions to which the non-profit aspires.’. It’s unclear whether Brussels Gallery Weekend has been suspended indefinitely, but the post expresses gratitude for all the participants throughout the years
Belgian Arts funding has been under pressure for the last few years. Much like art fairs the BGW event is a commercial enterprise that charges +40 galleries a fee for participating. Hence, the comment “various overlapping reasons” opens speculation that other reasons were also at hand. Belgian Art Collector and Twitter junky Alain Servais wrote “Lazy and complacent Brussels..” in response to the news.
BGW is one of the best-known ‘gallery weekends’ and is partly responsible for the stellar growth of the Brussels gallery scene- with numerous international galleries opening European outposts in the EU capital. Brussels gallerist Rodolphe Janssen wrote on his Instagram that a new project ‘built by Brussels galleries’ is coming in September.
So all eyes are on Brussels in the coming months to see if this initiative bears fruit…