SO THIS IS BELGIUM...

 BY SARA DARLING

Belgian born artist, Bert Houbrechts creates urban images with an underground edge.

With a background in fashion, he graduated from the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. This led to many collaborations with  the city’s cosmopolitan creative scene in the 90s, and since then he has dabbled in photography, fashion and art. 

The summer show at aesthetik01 in Berlin, was first published in ID-Magazine’s February 2001 issue, curated by Raf Simons.

Eerily documenting Monday morning frontages of warehouses and rave clubs in Antwerp, the photographs contradict visual expectations, with Illusion, Obsession, Cherry Moon, Escape and Explosion, the "it" clubs of the day,  morphing into day time carparks with no suggestion of the hedonism inside.  

 Ironically, behind the facades of the sleepy-looking locations, there are probably a lot of ravers with their their glow sticks and tops off, as was the scene in the nineties, but from the outside, they appear to be simply a quiet Belgium suburb. 

Check out this exhibition is Germany at Aesthetik01, until 31st August

This is Belgium - Bert Houbrechts
aesthetik01: Lübecker Str. 49, 10559, Berlin
 aesthetik01