Top of the list of new gallery spaces in Antwerp is the unique space named after its house number “12,” whose opening coincides with Antwerpen Art Weekend. This art nouveau gem on Kattendijkdok-Oostkaai, located in an area of Antwerp not typically known for this style, is rapidly becoming more refined. The owner, Mr. X, remains unknown. However, the historical 1907 house (Antwerp residents, don’t laugh – not only the 16th century is historical) was renovated by AIM EU Architecture (Wendy Sanders and Vincent de Graaf). In the early 20th century, the house was established as the prosperous shipping agency Jaenicken-Manceau (a typical combination of Flemish and Francophone surnames), built on a grand scale in the latest style. Today, it serves as a space for architectural, design, and exhibition projects.

For its opening “12” chose artist Jorgos Maraziotis (a graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp), whose works pay homage to the genius loci. His installations reflect the tension that arises when something is torn from its original context and presented as an entity with new, often enriched, meanings. The “Displaced” series also hints at the tension that occurs when people move from their “original” place to another, sometimes forcibly, in search of a better future. Since its foundation, the house, which today faces the Red Star Line Museum of Emigration, has witnessed the mobility of goods and migration of people in the early 20th century. Jorgos creates an allegorical landscape where visitors can continuously reflect on space, history, and family memory.

What is a room division when there are no rooms to divide? A door is merely a door until it has no wall. What does a frame become when there are no walls to support? The artist took carved art nouveau doors, partitions, and wooden frames and gave them the role of sculptures, stripped of their original functions. “He incorporated them into a contextual dialogue with a series of handmade neon sculptures, everyday industrial and printed materials that challenge the qualities and memories embedded in the found objects. Together, they form a rough and elegant capsule that activates our somatic awareness and demonstrates displacement as a catalyst for communication and human development.”

Thus, artist Jorgos Maraziotis collaborated with AIM EU’s renovation architects to create a very strong and quintessentially Antwerp project (a city of the second largest port in Europe and a hub of people and goods migration).