Last January, I attended the 70th edition of BRAFA in Brussels. Every year, the fair brings together over 130 international galleries at Brussels Expo. It’s the perfect opportunity for visitors to discover a multidisciplinary artistic panorama, ranging from tribal art to modern painting, and to share a love for art over the course of a week.

With over 65,000 visitors per year, both Belgian and international, this edition welcomed Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos as the guest of honor. Two monumental sculptures by her hand greeted visitors in the two entrance halls.

The fair showcased works by emerging, contemporary, and modern artists, as well as older pieces by great masters.

Galerie Taménaga (Paris, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto) showcased Chinese artist CHEN Jiang-Hong‘s recent series inspired by classical music, alongside several monumental canvases by Bernard Buffet, including L’Oiseau de Feu (The Firebird).

De Zutter Art Gallery (Knokke-Heist) displayed three paintings by Basquiat at its front, with the quote “I’m not a real person, I’m a legend” written above. A bit further inside the stand, a sculpture of deconstructed violins introduced a dynamic and fragmented dimension to the space.

Meanwhile, a bit further on, Stern Pissarro Gallery (London) highlighted works by great masters of modern art such as Kisling and Henri Martin, along with pieces by Jean-Pierre Cassigneul and Tom Wesselmann.

Some of my personal favorites included Before Two by Antony Gormley, exhibited by Boon Gallery (Knokke-Le Zoute)—a striking Double Bodycase Work.

Bernard Buffet’s La mort, n°3 (1999), presented by Galerie Alexis Pentcheff (Marseille), was another standout—a large-scale canvas.

Finally, Jorge Méndez Blake’s From an Unfinished Poem (Dylan Thomas. Adventures, 2025) left a lasting impression.