Axel Vervoordt Opens New Gallery in Antwerp, Plans Intuition Show at Palazzo Fortuny

The Axel Vervoordt Gallery has relocated from Antwerp's historic center to Kanaal, a 19th-century industrial site on the city's periphery, opening March 8, 2017. The inaugural exhibition features works by Kazuo Shiraga (1924–2008), a key member of the Gutai avant-garde, spanning the 1960s to the late 1990s. The gallery, founded in January 2011 by Boris Vervoordt in the Vlaeykensgang district, has represented artists such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, El Anatsui, Roman Opalka, Richard Serra, and Antoni Tàpies. In 2014, it opened a space in Hong Kong's central district focusing on Asian contemporary artists. The Kanaal site, a former distillery acquired by Axel Vervoordt, has been restored into a cultural citadel with offices, shops, apartments, and the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation housing the family collection. Since 2007, Vervoordt has curated exhibitions at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, starting with Artempo during the 2007 Biennale, followed by In-finitum (2009), TRA. Edge of Becoming (2011), Proportio (2015, winner of Best Exhibition of the Year at the Leading Culture Destinations Awards), and a monographic show on Tàpies (2013). The next exhibition, Intuition, runs May 13 to November 24, 2017, exploring aesthetic and spiritual illumination through works by Kandinsky, Klee, Pollock, Fontana, and groups Gutai and Zero.