‘Ceramic Brussels’ (22-26 January 2025) brought together ceramic enthusiasts for the second time under the roof of Tour& Taxis. The co-founder of the fair, the courtly Gilles Parmentier, explained why Brussels became Europe’s first specialised ceramics venue in an interview with www.artreporter.be: ‘Paris is oversaturated with exhibitions and design festivals and is cosmically expensive. Brussels attracts affordability as well as a good level of collectors.’

Many Parisian galleries took part in the fair, by the way. By the way, a small fraction of the Ceramic Brussels galleries specialise in ceramics. But over the last 20 years it has moved from the field of ‘applied art’ to pure art, as evidenced by the Brussels Ceramic Forum. In many of the art objects, it is difficult to recognise clay products. Thematically, they have moved far away from the ‘pot and vase’ period. At the fair there are stands organised by ceramic collectors. There are cross projects. In short, all genres except the boring one.

The guest of honour at 2025 is the American artist Elizabeth Jaeger with her project Entre Chines et Nous.

She takes Rainer Maria Rilke as her co-author and epigraphs the German genius’ lines to the exhibition: “consciousness was like our own being, moving towards us along a different path, drawing us along with it”. Elizabeth’s installations are enclosed in snow-white cage boxes, and viewers peering curiously into them (to see what’s in them) come across the frightened eyes of the animals. Who is more frightened? The animals or the humans? The truth is ‘between the dogs and us.’