Collectible 2020
The Brussels collectible design fair opened this week with a tempting array of 21 st century objects.
Vanderborght Building, Brussels
5th – 8th March 2020
By TDE News / 25th February 2020
Marija Puipaitė and Vytautas Gečas, ‘Envisioned Comfort’ chaise longue, 2018-20
COURTESY: Marija Puipaitė and Vytautas Gečas at Vartai Gallery
WHEN COLLECTORS LIV Vaisberg and Clélie Debehault set up Collectible in 2018, they had no idea whether the idea would fly. A design fair, solely dedicated to 21st century design, their ambition was to persuade Belgium’s many serious collectors that contemporary design could be as fertile a field for collecting as fine art or antiquities. Readying for its third edition next week, Collectible has become an anticipated fixture, drawing galleries from around the world.
The recipe from the start was to be inclusive, balancing established galleries – like Maniera in Brussels, Valerie Traan in Antwerp, Todd Merrill in the United States and Functional Art Gallery in Berlin – with younger galleries, designers representing themselves, loose associations like Zaventem Ateliers, and collectives, like BRUT collective. The focus is exclusively on unique, bespoke or limited edition design. The three Belgian design museums are also represented: in effect, the whole ecosystem of the burgeoning Belgian design scene.
Charlotte Kidger, ‘Untitled Blocks’ 2020
COURTESY: Collectible
“Collectible has become an anticipated fixture, drawing galleries from around the world”
Ward Wijnant, ‘Blend’, 2019
COURTESY: Collectible / PHOTOGRAPH: Ronald Smits
“The focus is exclusively on unique, bespoke or limited edition design”
You will be able to see the extraordinary chaise longue ‘Envisioned Comfort’ (a collaboration between Lithuanian designers Marija Puipaitė and Vytautas Gečas) on the stand of Galerija Vartai, from Vilnius – but also young London-based material designer Charlotte Kidger’s structures made from waste polyurethane foam dust. The designer Lionel Jadot shows his own exuberant furniture with Todd Merrill, while the loosely affiliated group of designers he has brought together as tenants in Zaventem Ateliers have collaborated to produce an unusual ping-pong table.
Frédéric Saulou, ‘Courtois’, 2019
COURTESY: Galerie Philia
Swiss Galerie D’art Philia will show the refined sculptural work of French designer Frédéric Saulou, while Kiev-based design brand Faina, set up in 2014 by architect and designer Victoriya Yakusha, will display intriguing items of furniture made from local materials clay, wood, willow and flax.
Faina Design, ‘Terracota Set’
COURTESY: Faina Design / PHOTOGRAPH: © Sergey Chernousiv
The whole scenography, designed by Rotterdam-based architectural practice Atelier Tomas Dirrix, will seek, we are told, to confound expectations of the 1930s landmark Vanderborght building, the multi-level light-filled building which has become Collectible’s regular venue. If you are headed to TEFAF in Maastricht next week, Collectible makes the obvious first point of call.
On a wintry flying visit to Brussels, The Design Edit talked to the Founders of Collectible about their vision.
An interview with the founders of Collectible
COURTESY: TDE TV
Compiled by The Design Edit team
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