This year is BRAFA’s 71st year of a long term succes story, which takes place from the 25th January until the 1st of February 2026!
Sous la présidence de Klaas Muller, BRAFA célèbre l’excellence artistique, la créativité et l’éclectisme. Pour la deuxième année consécutive, BRAFA réunit collectionneurs, conservateurs, galeristes et amateurs d’art du monde entier ! BRAFA promeut l’art belge en priorité !
© BRAFA
Le BRAFA demeure un baromètre du marché de l’art européen, fort de 7 000 ans d’histoire, réunissant près de 150 galeries issues de 20 pays et proposant une sélection pointue d’œuvres allant des maîtres anciens aux arts décoratifs, du design aux bijoux, des tapis aux livres rares ! C’est une expérience culturelle complète et enrichissante, qui commence dès l’entrée avec un somptueux tapis recouvrant l’ensemble des halls, des délices gastronomiques, des découvertes artistiques et des rencontres enrichissantes : visiteurs et galeries confondus ! Car c’est bien là l’essentiel : les échanges d’œuvres, d’idées, d’images, d’inspirations et d’expériences ! Accueillant aujourd’hui 72 000 visiteurs, le BRAFA ambitionne d’atteindre un nombre encore plus important à l’avenir !
© BRAFA
BRAFA found its home base at Brussels Expo, because the ambitions are sky-high! And rightly so! Every year more international guests are attending it, more galleries are participating and the program during BRAFA is also becoming bigger and richer! Not only Art talks are added, but also music concerts!
This year King Baudouin Foundation is a guest of Honor and the celebration of 50th Anniversary of it is an excellent reason to be one! The Foundation has a special booth! My favorite art work of the Foundation is an antique piece of Brussels Lace, which is a part of collection and now shown at BRAFA, but at display at Fashion and Lace Museum! The Foundation is famous for its mediation role as well via culture and heritage program, at BRAFA this years it organizes a series of lectures and afternoon concerts for all of us!
© photo Yelena Van Kharitonova
I fixed my glance this year at one of my favorite galleries: Objects with Narratives, a new comer to the art world with a very impressive pedigree of achievements during the last years at BRAFA and beyond! Its golden booth projects and reflects the well- deserved golden medal I would give to the three hard working busy bees- founders behind its success story! This year they have chosen to create a solo show of a Belgian design star: Ben Storms, who is playfully mastering the notions weight and materials! The illusion he has been creating so far is impressive and worth the solo show! People like Dries Van Noten agrees with me and buys Ben Storms’s Design pieces for himself.
© photo Yelena Van Kharitonova
Marius Ritiu, like Ben Storms himself is also an Antwerp-based designer, who’s work was presented by Objects With Narratives before and nowadays he is at DELEN Bank Pavilion, showcasing similar objects, where he is plating with the illusion of weight! The Delen Bank‘s booth is also one of my favorite ones annually! The Bank is a partner and a regular annual sponsor of BRAFA! Bravo and Kudos!
Everyone’s darling this year is ARTIMO Fine Arts Gallery, which is also based at Sablon and which transformed BRAFA this year into an indoor garden, inspired by Château de Bellevue, paying tribute to Madame de Pompidou, the iconic patron of the Manufacture de Serves! She was the inventor of ceramic flowers at her time! A very good colleague and friend Anna Volkova, who is Saint-Petersburg born and Amsterdam based has created the paradise with her extremely delicate work! She has created original composition of peonies, antique roses and imagery flowers to accompany the sculptures on this stand!
© photo Yelena Van Kharitonova
Not only this gallery offers visitors of BRAFA an immersive experience in which past and present meet in a garden of light and image!
The fair itself is a Sensorium Festival, where the imagination is King and where we all can be travelers, nomad’s and vagabonds of art!
Much could be written about BRAFA, but the best thing to explore it: to do it yourself!
Happy New Year 2026 with special concerts
