The Delvaux corporate headquarters in Etterbeek at the eastern edge of Brussels, encompasses an active leather-goods atelier, a vast leather library, a design studio, a sleek mini-museum, an archive known as the “Livre d’Or,” comprising upwards of 3,000 handbag models, and—for the next six months—a series of captivating installations by Hans Op de Beeck.
Rather than a flashy takeover, these serene, grey-washed sculptural interjections include a vignette of petrified lilies and empty frames in a central waiting room, eclectic still life compositions staggered throughout the atelier, and a large-scale imaginative scene under the industrial skylights of the central passage, where interior and exterior elements meld to transporting effect.
This total environment is demarcated by a plush carpet that surrounds a trompe l’œil pond, where lotus flowers “float” atop the reflective black surface. At either end are two childlike figures donning opposing expressions of contemplation and ennui (the angelic girl is winged and holds a wand but is clearly not in the mood for magic). Rising from the center is a slowly rotating sphere covered in words like “infinity,” “emptiness,” and “sanguine” that suggest orbital paths. Tufted sofas in fiberglass invite visitors to sit and pause while small plinths displaying Delvaux’s emblematic Brillant bag emerge from clusters of tall plants.
All around the sculptural intervention, Delvaux artisans carry on fabricating the Maison’s special order bags; the clinking sounds of tools and machines serve as a foil for Op de Beeck’s ambient soundscape.
“I never make loud installations. It’s always sort of calm and quiet and hopefully as inviting as possible for you to sit down and have a moment,” says the artist, who is based between Brussels and Ghent. “In a working environment like this one, of course there are a lot more dynamics. This is not a white cube exhibition space. People that work here are not the average museum visitors or biennale goers. So there’s other expectations, another sort of dialogue.”
When it comes to artistic endeavors, Delvaux, which was founded in 1829 and describes itself as “the oldest fine-leather goods house in the world,” has also established a relationship with the Magritte Foundation (the most famous Belgian artist of modern times); bag designs through the years have integrated the Surrealist’s works. Although Op de Beeck doesn’t consider himself a Surrealist, the molded objects of his memento mori—from burning candles and cigarette butts to peanuts and single blackberries (his “madeleine de Proust”)—ooze with uncanny delight.
“I think our task as artists is to find the exact balance between form and contents, regardless of what the contents are or the form is,” he says. “It might be very baroque and kitschy. It might be very minimalist and conceptual. I try to explore all those potential aspects because all notions or all directions have great potential.”
CEO Jean-Marc Loubier—who led the acquisition of a majority stake in Delvaux in 2011, and left the role only to return in 2021 following Richemont’s acquisition—has held leadership positions in luxury for long enough to have formed an admirable perspective on how it extends across excellence in savoir-faire and product desirability to a broader commitment to creativity. In Op de Beeck, he saw an artist whose ideas around time and emotion echo how the world of Delvaux is “perennial” yet “not quiet.”
He was surprised to discover the artist’s mold of the Brillant bag, not only in this installation but in a work that appeared at Art Basel. “He has a lot of humanity and a clear universe that anyone external could perceive [here],” he explains. “The way he plays with the color, how there is no hierarchy in what he presents, there is a freedom of interpretation.”
For Op de Beeck—who teased that his new exhibition at Almine Rech’s Brussels outpost (on view through Nov. 7) will feature poems, a first, along with a return to color—the notion of “dedication” is what drew him to Delvaux. “There’s the dedication for the craft,” he says, adding “And I consider dedication and craftsmanship on the same level as something that, at its core, is a positive act, something constructive.”
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