BRAFA Art Fair is one of the most prestigious Art Fairs in Europe, having this year 2024 their 69th edition in the European capital, Brussels. This Art Fair was born in 1956 by the desire of both Vice-President and President of the Chambre des Antiquaires de Belgique.
In this year’s edition of BRAFA, the environment of the event looked profound, professional, diverse more than ever with more than 65,000 visitors that come each year to enjoy the 130 galleries from all over Europe who are presenting their artworks. Two huge halls replete with booths of all kinds are the main attraction of the event, as well as the two “food lounges” with exquisite champagne, oysters and other tapas.
Paris, London and Brussels are the most rated cities with more stalls: sculpture, furniture, jewelry, impressionist paintings, modern and contemporary art… Different varieties of art work. Besides these three ruling cities we can spot Italian Galleries, Spanish Galleries and much more, although Boon Gallery is the only one in the list that exposes Korean Art.
This Gallery was founded in 1985, specialized in late XIX century, early XX century European paintings, has become one of the most prestigious art galleries in Europe, taking part in art fairs all over the world. It’s been some years now that Boon Gallery has presented Korean art in BRAFA, this year presenting five paintings from Kim Tschang- Yeul and Lee Ufan.
Kim Thschang-Yeul is a Korean painter who spent most of his life living in Paris, where he discovered his signature style: painting water drops. He has been one of the most important artists in Korean modern Art History. His work with droplets often refers to the subject of water droplets as multi-layered images of cleansing, purification, and “the evanescence of individual life”, painting these drops used to help him to forget the traumatic and painful memories from the Korean War(1950-1953), it was a therapeutic gesture, which also shares characteristics with buddhism and taoism, helping him to erase his ego. The artist, to give more realism to his artwork, usually used Trompe l’oeil technique, that gives a three dimensional illusion in his paintings.
Lee Ufan, also a South Korean artist, decided to move to Japan and study philosophy, interrupting his studies in art back in Korea. Once he finished university in Tokyo, made the choice to go back to his artistic life, using visual representation as a way of representing his ideas, he started sculpting with stones, steel, rubber and glass. He established the avant-garde style called “Mono-ha” o School of Thing recognized in Japan as the first movement of contemporary art, Lee Ufan is well known for his minimal art work that jut out the angles between objects, his works also show different relations between objects and their environments.
Both artists' artwork catch the attention and interest of all who look at the paintings, making them reflect about what the artists want to represent. A priori both representations of art mean totally different things, but if you look into the real sense you see that Lee Ufan and Kim Tschang-Yeul ensure deeper things, like the evanescence of the individual life or the facility to connect with the exterior. Water drops and perfect squares are protagonists of the paintings exhibited by Boon Gallery in this Brafa edition 2024.
The desire of creating BRAFA, was based on creating an “antiques fair” and showing everyone the unique pieces they had. Back in the day there were another two similar events, one in the Netherlands and the other one in London.
Charles Van Hove and Mamy Wouters, the pioneers of this Art event, chose to do their first edition in the Salle Arlequin of the Galerie Louise in Brussels. This Gallery was property of an English trader in the XIX century and after a series of demolitions and reconstruction during the following years, it ended up being a converted commercial street near Avenue Louise, that’s where the name comes from. Nowadays it is a shopping center.
Back to BRAFA history, in 1967 it started being just a national Art Fair, and it became such a success that they couldn’t fit in the Gallery, and the event had to look for a new location: Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, an amazing building constructed by Victor Horta, which style is art deco. Not everyone was privileged enough to attend the Fair, only 40 or 50 antique dealers were allowed to go. A couple years later, the “influencers” of that time started to promote the event; Royal members, actors and actresses, designers and singers were the image of old BRAFA. In 1995 BRAFA opened its doors to all the foreign European dealers and it became an international event in Europe. Again, success caused the Art Fair to move location again, using the space Tours and Taxis from 2004 until 2022, when a new placement was established: Brussels Expo on the north side of the city. One of the main sponsors of the event is Delen Private Bank, and has been collaborating with BRAFA since early 2007.
By and large, BRAFA is an artistic immersion to all of the art lovers that want to have an authentic experience of attending to an Art Fair, not necessarily to buy any artwork, because those are considerate super prestigious, and of course not adapted to all pockets, but it is a very good experience and opportunity to get to know not that famous Galleries and museums all over Europe, and discover new painters, paintings, sculptures and more. Next 2025, BRAFA will celebrate his 70th birthday, and probably big things will come.