★ BRAFA Art Fair

01Pourquoi c'est important

BRAFA opens the European year. It is the first significant fair of the calendar, held before the market has decided what it thinks about the year ahead, and Belgium's own collecting culture, which is deep, private and unusually catholic in taste, gives it a character no single-field fair has.

Our reading is that its importance is regional rather than global, and that this is a strength. For a visitor it means a fair where dealers have time to talk, where the objects are more varied than at any comparable event, and where the whole trip costs a fraction of a Basel or Maastricht one.

02La semaine environnante

Brussels does not reorganize itself around BRAFA the way Maastricht does around TEFAF, but the trade uses the week. The Sablon, the antiques quarter around the Place du Grand Sablon in the upper town, holds the city's dealers and its weekend antiques market, and is the natural extension of a fair visit. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts and the Magritte Museum sit at the top of the same hill; Bozar is a few minutes away; and Wiels, in a converted brewery in Forest, is the city's most serious contemporary space. Many visitors come for a day from Paris, London, Amsterdam or Cologne, all within about two hours by train, and do not stay at all.

03Quand arriver

The Friday preview if you have an invitation. Otherwise the fair's length is its advantage: the first weekend is busy, the following weekdays are quiet and much better for looking, and the final weekend fills again. If staying, two nights covers the fair, the Sablon and the museums comfortably.

04Où séjourner

The upper town around the Sablon and the Royal Museums is the best base, close to the dealers, the museums and the restaurants, and about twenty minutes from Brussels Expo by metro. The area around the Grand Place is more touristed and equally central. Ixelles and Saint-Gilles, south of the centre, are where Brussels actually lives and eats. The hotels beside Brussels Expo exist for trade fairs and have nothing around them.

05Accès et hospitalité

The Collectors' Preview on the Friday and the Exclusive Saturday that follows are invitation-based, issued by the fair and by exhibiting dealers. Public admission then runs for eight days, with tickets sold on brafa.art and at Brussels Expo; the organizer publishes prices each year and they are not reproduced here. Everything shown is vetted by independent specialists before opening, and a talks programme is included with admission. Brussels's museum admission is among the cheapest in Western Europe.

06Où se déroule l'activité sociale

Brussels Expo is on the edge of the city beside the Atomium, so the fair's own restaurant and bars carry the daytime and the evening happens elsewhere. The Sablon is the trade's quarter: the square itself, the cafés around it, and the restaurants on the Rue de Rollebeek. The Place du Châtelain in Ixelles and the streets around the Parvis de Saint-Gilles hold the city's better and less formal eating. Brussels's café culture is the point of the week for many visitors and requires no invitation of any kind.

07Comment s'y rendre

08Informations pratiques

09Historique

The fair was founded in 1956 as the Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique, which makes it one of the oldest art and antiques fairs in Europe, older than TEFAF by three decades. It spent years at the converted Tour and Taxis freight terminal before relocating to Brussels Expo on the Heysel plateau in the mid-2020s. The Guest of Honour tradition, which invites an artist, collection or institution to present within the fair, has run for decades and is its most distinctive editorial device.

10Qui s'y trouve

Belgian collectors, who buy across categories more readily than most, together with Dutch, French, German and British buyers within easy rail distance; the northern European historical and tribal art trade; museum curators from Belgian and Dutch institutions; interior designers; and a large Belgian public across the eight public days, for whom the fair is an established January outing.