"Disused Distillery Becomes the Antwerp Art Scene’s Newest, Biggest Thing”
by Scott Reyburn on nytimes.com
Vervoordt has taken his approach to a new level with Kanaal, a giant cultural and residential complex on the site of a disused distillery on the outskirts of Antwerp. The opening of the private arts center reinforces Antwerp’s resurgent reputation as a European cultural hub.
ANTWERP, Belgium — Gray walls, bare floor, moody spotlighting. An ancient Egyptian marble bowl here, an eighth-century Thai sculpture there. And dominating one end of the room, above a Le Corbusier armchair, a huge abstract that a Japanese artist painted with his feet.
This is the distinctive look associated with Axel Vervoordt, an international art dealer and interior designer with galleries in Belgium and Hong Kong. Mr. Vervoordt’s minimalist fusions of East and West, ancient and modern, have become the admired trademark of his booths at fairs such as Tefaf Maastricht and Masterpiece, as well as at his exhibitions in the Palazzo Fortuny during the Venice Biennale. Kanye West, Sting and Robert De Niro are among his customers.
But Mr. Vervoordt has taken his approach to a new level with Kanaal, a giant cultural and residential complex on the site of a disused distillery on the outskirts of Antwerp. The opening of the private arts center reinforces Antwerp’s resurgent reputation as a European cultural hub.
“It’s about creating the best place for art,” Mr. Vervoordt, 70, said in an interview at the Nov. 30 opening, as a crowd of well-to-do collectors filed in. “I fell in love with the distillery building. Industrial architecture is real, and it just wants to be useful. It’s very spiritual, intimate and religious, but I don’t know what religion.”
