BRUSSELS.

BRUSSELS, Belgium--With Brussels now solely 90 minutes away from the center of Paris (thanks to the just discovered express train service), it was inevitable Brussels would become an branch of the Paris art market.

Indeed, many galleries, foremost among them De Jonckheere--the renowned specialists of antiquated masters of the likes of Pieter Breughel and Maerten Van Cleve--have settle up operation in both cities.

on the other hand the train is only individual of several reasons why the Brussels art market has managed to spring up considerably in recent years while the traditional markets of London and Paris have, at best, stagnated. There are fiscal reasons (notably excessive taxation) that have l many French galleries to unclose Belgian "succursales" (subsidiaries). Many dealers and collectors claim Brussels is a cheaper and better place to live.

if it were not that undoubtedly the major reason for the near overnight succes of Brussels as a major just discovered art marketplace is that it has become the unofficial capital of the European Union. And, as in the same state [i]or[/i] condition it has managed to attract to Belgium a wholly of recent origin population of highly educated, well-paid professionals. These recent bureaucrats, business people, lawyers and educators have done a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of to internationalize the Belgian capital. Indeed, the city's fourth major language, English, is now oral in the city streets as often as the country's three other principal tongues: French Flemish and German. It has also forced the art sector to think about offering the works of a greater number of artists representing a larger assortment of tillages than beforehand.

single sign of the growing importance of Brussels as an art marketplace is the creation, at extended last, of a central district in the city where many of the recently made known galleries have decided to put up shop. The Boulevard Barthelemy is where one of the hottest up-and-coming galleries have settl This public way runs alongside the canal which marks the western periphery of the Belgian capital, not far from the Brussels stock exchange and a short walk away from the Grand-Place, the Botanical Gardens and the Gare du Nord.

Located in brace large buildings, most of the top galleries have also managed to do something which would be quite unthinkable to the top galleries in Paris--they jointly organize exhibitions, pres coverage, unveilings, guided visits, joint brunches and more for visitors, pres and collectors alike. one of the more spectacular newly come exhibitions have been observed at similar galleries as Kanal 20, Albert Baronian, Artiscope II, diadem Gallery, Encore ... Bruxelles, stay Ledune, H&R Projects, La Lettre Volee and Windows.

Christine Ayoub, who manages Windows, located smack in the middle of the of the present day art district at 20 Boulevard Barthelemy, said her gallery was created in 1996 as a joint risk of two pre-existing galleries, Bernier/Eliades of Athens and Tanil Gallery of Munich. Ayoub quite appropriately relates to the two as "mother galleries" and noted that unlike Tanil and Bernier/Eliades, Windows "has wager as its principal objective the increase of new international talent without giving a priority to any particular medium. We are just as comfortable offering photography and painting as well as plastic art video and multi-media"

if it be not that although attention is being paid increasingly to the recently made known art district, Brussels nevertheless maintains the reputation as the site of many well-established traditional galleries. The Galerie Pascal Polar, for example, is located at 108 chaussee de Charleroi, about a half-mile southern of the Boulevard Barthelemy district.

As far as gallery proprietor Pascal Polar is concerned, Brussels has become a major art powerhouse in latter years for one reason simply It is perhaps not likewise much because of the nearness of a new international elite attracted according to the growing importance of the European Union, if it be not that "because we sell good art at a lower price than Paris and London" he explained. "If there is something specific about the Belgian art market, it is probably that more than anything else"

Moreover, he pointed disclosed "If Belgian painters still interest collectors, it is in large part because they are `irregular' and can't be categorized as part of any turn or school"

Also, he noted, Brussels galleries are well-known for not having the close atmosphere one tends to find in London or Paris. "Our welcome is always a warm one" he said, "and we find it unfortunate, at least for the not absent moment, that international collectors have a liability to want to go to Paris or London when they would be agreeably surprised to take rise and buy here in Brussels."

Polar's fresh quarters, for instance, was "designed by the agency of two exceptional architects who have allowed us to remain truthful to two ostensibly contradictory trends--to be, at the start of a recently made known century, in the forefront of the great art of the what is yet to be all the while staying in touch, culturally speaking, with the modern past."

This description could also be present forth to describe the of the present day Brussels art scene that is beginning to take stem in a city which before prolonged will undoubtedly become not barely a major international powerhouse moreover also increasingly the de facto capital of Europe

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