New York, early November: MoMA's James Ensor exhibition has been crated, shortly thereafter a DVD titled ‘Collecting Flanders' falls into mailboxes of US Frieze subscribers. At the same time, a host of exhibitions and events featuring Belgian art, or art made in Belgium, pop up around the city. If a substantial effort went into the promotion of Flanders's museums and the showcasing of Ensor as a Flemish artist, the current exhibitions refuse to go down this region-specific path and stick to the general term ‘Belgian'.

It is, of course, not astounding that Belgian artists have found their way to New York, nor is it surprising that they have been welcomed by the local galleries. A trend of late, however, is the international recognition of Brussels as a city with a vibrant arts scene. This move to the European capital is, according to Aaron Schuster's ‘City Report' in January 2008's Frieze, a result of the fact that Brussels is "more conducive to individual encounters and idiosyncratic production-a product of the city's ‘functional disorganization', affordable living and de-centered spirit." More, being a Belgian artist or owning Belgian art (a Jan de Cock, for instance), has increasing prestige in the mainstream New York art-world.
‘Avec Le Temps-In Time,' on view at Robert Miller Gallery until December 23d, features 22 works by nine artists, who are all Belgian or live and work in Belgium. The curator, Tim Goossens, went beyond Brussels and selected works by artists from different generations to give an overview of the current contemporary arts scene in Belgium. Some pieces date back to the late 1990s, but most were produced in the last two years. At no point in this show does nationalist sentiment hit the viewer. On the contrary: the reference takes second place after a thematic thread. Goossens invokes Leo Ferré's ‘Avec Le Temps' to bring to the fore a host of different references to time.
Ranging from near-to-contemplative single room installations by Pieter Vermeersch and Fabrice Samyn, screaming Atari-esque flags created by Philip Metten, seemingly lost and ordinary objects made by Koenraad De Dobbeleer, and mesmerizing video work by Opsomer and Dekyndt, the exhibition as a whole doubles the ‘low-key anarchy' or ‘de-centeredness' noted by Aaron Schuster. Goossens has created clusters, in which he puts artists in dialogue. To the New York eye, some of these artists, like Braeckman, are no newcomers; others, like Dekyndt or Samyn, have never been shown in the US.
Pieter Vermeersch's ‘Untitled', similar to the work shown at New York's White Box Gallery last spring, is a wall painting made of blue acrylic that gradually turns darker toward the room's corner. The blue quietude communicates with Samyn's ‘Time's Grave' -a room filled with sand and a half-buried oversized broken hourglass. Similarly, two large gelatin prints by Dirk Braeckman, formally communicate with Willem Oorebeek's lithographs, ‘The Towers of Babel: Black-out' and ‘More Elle-Elle'. In this all-black dialogue, De Dobbeleer's 1 to 1 nickel reproduction of a typical red party goblet lies somewhat forgotten on the floor. The same goes for his recently finished ‘Untitled', a limestone replica of a rat-trap that stands adjacent to Philip Metten's tarp flags titled ‘Codec'. The aesthetic of ‘Codec' also contrasts surrounding works by Fabrice Samyn and Stephan Balleux. Samyn's three intriguing large inkjet prints focus on Adam's and Eve's navels as depicted in iconic early modern painting. Balleux's large hyper-realist grisaille oil paintings combine post-apocalyptic imagery with references to classical painting.
The works by the two women included in this overview, Els Opsomer and Edith Dekyndt, venture into another direction, as they require the viewer to halt and pay attention to the combination of video footage, eerie sound and, in Dekyndt's case, poetic written language. Unfortunately, the pieces compete over the gallery's sound-space. Dekyndt's ‘Grey Song', combined with her videos ‘Générique' and ‘Martial M', imbues the gallery with a heartbeat sound that breaks the contemplative and painterly modes evoked by some of the other works. Every six minutes, Els Opsomer's documentary ‘10th of November' interrupts the ‘Grey Song' rhythm and fills the space with a one-minute-long arresting siren.
Concurrent to ‘Avec Le Temps', other Belgian art emerges somewhat further afield, in the Lower East Side. LMAK Projects currently presents Harold Ancart's first solo show titled ‘Within Limits' (Oct 24-Dec 6). What looks like a 3-D drawing fills the largest part of the small gallery. Made of nylon, polymer and dry pigment, Ancart's fragile installation is a feat of precision and pushes the boundaries of drawing. A few blocks down from LMAK, Ludlow 38 last month juxtaposed the dense and brainy work by Lilie Dujourie with films by Ion Grigorescu. Another neighbor, White Box gallery, together with Performa 09, hosted on November 8th a fencing match between Michaël Aerts and Vadim Vosters. This all-Belgian performance was a welcome addition to the spectrum. While Belgian contemporary object-based artists seem to gain ample presence in New York (Tuymans, by the way, also visited for a book signing), other contemporary practices from the region are unfortunately much less noticed by the NY radar.

Sarah DEMEUSE

‘Avec Le Temps-In Time', on view at Robert Miller Gallery, 524 West 26th Street, New York, until December 23d. www.robertmillergallery.com.