CCNOA, Brussels, Belgium
artdesigncafé | café library | Published 15 September 2009
This article first appeared in Sculpture, 22(6), pp. 22-3 in 2003.
People who stop over in Brussels usually meander past shops selling chocolate and lace on their way to the city’s star attraction, Grand-Place, with its magnificent guild houses and town hall; art visitors may trek to the Horta House for some Art Nouveau extravagance or visit the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts to see David’s Death of Marat and the collection of Magrittes. Despite its strong sampling of art historical gems, the capital suffers a low profile when it comes to contemporary art—a situation that the Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art (CCNOA) may remedy. Located just a short walk from Grand-Place, CCNOA, which also features architecture, has actively contributed to raising the visibility of new art in Belgium.
CCNOA is an unusual, hybrid space. “Call it Dia Center for the Arts— on a shoestring— but with a focus on contemporary abstract art,” says founder and director Petra Bungert, who launched the space in 1998. Born and raised in northern Germany, Bungert lived in New York City for 10 years. During that time, she was Head of Administration at P.S. 1 (1997-98) and focused on non-objective art with her Petra Bungert Projects (1995-97), exhibited in a 20-square-meter space in Lower Manhattan. She has also been active in publishing artist editions over the years. Bungert sees CCNOA as a continuation of this work.
Situated in a 160-square-meter white cube in a former factory building, CCNOA looks like an art space plucked out of SoHo. Over its short history, the center has organized over 30 shows exploring non-objective concerns in art. Bungert’s favorites include two exhibitions that she curated—“Dan Walsh and Olivier Mosset” (2002) and “Transforms & Constellations” (2000)—and another show, “Spatial Intersections” (2001), curated by Sophia Ungers.
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Dan Walsh. Untitled (Environment), (detail) (2002). Site-specific installation at CCNOA, Brussels.
“Dan Walsh and Olivier Mosset” involved Walsh in an unusual collaboration with veteran monochrome painter Mosset. Walsh organized the exhibition space as a guide to viewing Mosset’s four paintings. In his recent installations, including 7 Grays (2002) at Paula Cooper in New York, Walsh works with the premise that painting today has become frozen in its own art historical context, and therefore impossible to see. His CCNOA installation was designed to enable viewers to see the beauty of Mosset’s monochromatic palette, and Walsh’s stupa-like sculpture Intervention set the proper tone to experience the color and simplicity, projecting a meditative quality. In the adjacent room, Sol Lewitt exhibited Copied Line (2002); he faxed written instructions for four artists to execute a line drawing in red, yellow, blue and black.
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Tilman. Tranforms & constellations, (2000). Site-specific installation with two- and three-dimensional wall and floor works.
In his installation, Transforms & Constellations (2000), Brussels-based Tilman explored visual perception and the spirituality of color. The interior space was considered a framing element. Removing paintings from the wall, Tilman shifted the divisions between the autonomous work of art (on the wall) and “installation”.
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