BXL Universel exhibition celebrates multi-faceted Brussels

"If you really want to have a fun time and feel the true spirit of Brussels you have to come to see this show," says Carine Fol, director of the Central(e) for Contemporary Art and curator of BXL Universel.

The show, a subjective view of Brussels encompassing archive documents, films, videos, photographs and the works of Brussels-born and Brussels-based artists, is about as far as one can get from a stodgy, didactic, stuffy exhibition. Instead one is in for a sometimes rollicking, sometimes reflective, sometimes moving experience.

"As an art director I am very fond of this kind of a project where we mix different kinds of people, where art becomes a kind of social event and a way of getting in contact with people of different origins, different layers of society, different generations," says Fol.

This is a friendly show based on Zwanze, the celebrated self-deprecating humour of Brussels. Visitors can put on headphones and enjoy a moment in a Marolles café with Toots Thielemans and mime Enrico captured on film - and peruse a wall of photos of everyday Brussels citizens' family photos from past decades, photos that were found for sale at the flea market, interspersed with classic photos by chroniclers of Brussels such as Benoît de Pierpont.

There is also a fascinating and erudite conversation about the plants of Brussels with artist Lise Duclaux, a conversation that ends with one adopting one of the plants and taking it home. Other artists and prominent figures represented include Jacques Brel, Marcel Broodthaers, Ever Meulen, Manneken Pis, Johan Muyle, Charlemagne Palestine, Marie-Françoise Plissart, Elvis Pompilio, François Schuiten, Stromae and Toone.

The show opens with an extraordinary piece of outsider art, The Weltmaschine, the machine of the world, by Austrian farmer Franz Gsellmann, who in 1958 saw a reproduction of the Atomium, fell in love with it and, though he had never travelled before, he took the train to Brussels and came to see that incredible construction which is both a building and a sculpture.

He went home with a little replica of the Atomium and spent more than 20 years building his Weltmaschine in one of the outbuildings on his farm. "For me it's a very symbolic way of beginning the exhibition," says Fol, "to show how people can be devoted to art because of a click they have, sometimes not having the tools to be an artist but really with the necessity to make art, so art in fact changes your existence."

There's much more as wonderful discoveries abound. "The exhibition is one big artwork too," Fol adds. "I hope people will make a relation with pataphysics, the science of the subjective and of the imaginary solutions - because in the times that we are living it's important to have that kind of spirit, the exhibition is a kind of full construction with very different things, very touching things, very pleasant, very humorous.

"You will find things that you weren't expecting in a contemporary art centre: François Schuiten is famous for having made an imaginary, fantastic world out of Brussels and all the artists that are present here have the same thing in their work and in their lives."

There are children's workshops, guided tours, lectures and multidisciplinary collaborations with other Brussels cultural bodies (Atomium, Kaaitheater-Performatik, Passa Porta, La Fleur en Papier Doré, Ars Musica, Cinematek and the Semaine du Son. This is the first of a trilogy, with another exhibition in 2019 and a third in 2022.

BXL Universel, Central(e) for Contemporary Art, until 26 March 2017.
www.centrale.brussels