Axel Vervoordt Gallery was founded by Boris Vervoordt in the center of Antwerp in January 2011 as part of the Axel Vervoordt Company. Since March 2017 the gallery moved to its new location at Kanaal, Wijnegem.
As a strong supporter of Zero and Gutai art movements from its inception, the gallery’s vision has gradually evolved into contemporary art with a special interest in the concept of the void, the process of the creation and in the questioning of the experience of space and time.
The gallery provides a neutral platform for artists with whom we’ve created a valuable, intense relationship. These relationships have never stopped growing since the exhibitions we created with the artists since 2007 at the Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, during the Biennial (Artempo. Where Time Becomes Art , In-finitum, TRA, Tàpies. The Eye of the Artist and Proportio) and in 2008 at the Ecole des Beaux-Art in Paris (Academia. Qui-es tu?).
The gallery is also proud to have collaborated at the major Gutai and Zero retrospective exhibitions at the Guggenheim, New York in 2013 (Gutai: Splendid Playground) and in 2014 (Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow 1950s-60s) and continues to work on firmly inscribing both art movements in art history.
Since 2013 we started publishing our Gutai book series together with academics like Reiko Tomii, Ming Tiampo and Shoichi Hirai in order to give an everlasting shape to Gutai’s historical importance. The first book in this series treated the work of Norio Imai and was presented during the Guggenheim Gutai retrospective. In 2014 a substantial publication about Tsuyoshi Maekawa followed and in 2015 also monographs about Yuko Nasaka and Kazuo Shiraga.
In May 2014, Axel Vervoordt Gallery expanded to Hong Kong and opened its first overseas exhibition venue in the city's central district. El Anatsui created new work for this occasion. By having a physical presence in Hong Kong, Axel Vervoordt Gallery will continue to bridge artistic expressions between the East and the West.
Both locations work closely with living contemporary artists while actively engaging with local and global audiences. We continue to publish monographs on the represented artists and participating in major contemporary art fairs internationally.
