Lineart 2009

Yesterday I went to visit the art fair Lineart (edition 28) in Gent, Belgium.

I've visited this fair every edition during the last 5 years.

And, fortunately, this year the quality of the presented work, overall, was great.

In my opinion too many galleries during the last few years showed a rather conservative collection of art. With conservative I mean that they chose for art from artists with the reputation of selling well. Not a lot of new things to discover for the public. I understand that galleries need to sell, but in order to keep attracting audience, they'll have to make it attractive and develop themselves, just like an artist needs to evolve. It's important to impress, to surprise, so the audience wants to come back every year and see what you present this time.

But that was then, and now we had a lot to see. I noticed that some of the artists really made great developments in their work during the last year. I met some artist-friends who were represented by a gallery and they were all very satisfied with the result of the fair. The gallery ART-ist (Geel-Belgium) I work with, was very content too.

The spirit, overall, was positive, and this is a good thing.

I really liked the new (evolved) work of Serge van de Put, Marlis Albrecht, Kalvis Zuters, Paulis Postazs and Raf Veulemans. And I loved seeing again the work of Jef Bertels, Roland Devolder, Jo Pirard, Dirk de Keyzer, and Stephane Halleux. New to me was the work of André Nadal, the works from several artists from the Ho-Gallery (Seoul), Leon Keer, CallmeFrank and I know I've forgotten some.

Afterwards I visited my dear friend in Gent, and I must say: it was a beautiful day!