Galerie Greta Meert has been firmly established as a contemporary art gallery for over 25 years. Founded in 1988 as Galerie Meert Rihoux, it changed its name after its founding director, Greta Meert, in 2006.
Located in the centre of Brussels, the Gallery occupies an impressive Art Nouveau industrial building that was designed by the architect Louis Bral and subsequently renovated as a gallery space by renowned Belgian architects Hilde Daem and Paul Robbrecht.
Since 2012, when the Gallery inaugurated a further exhibition space, it has occupied three floors in the building. This makes it possible to maintain an expanded exhibition schedule and show up to three exhibitions concurrently.
Greta Meert Gallery opened in 1988 with the first international show by the young German photographer Thomas Struth. In the same year exhibitions by Robert Mangold, Richard Tuttle and Louise Lawler followed. In 1989
John Baldessari and
Hanne Darboven presented their first solo shows, and in 1992 work by
Donald Judd and early work by Isa Genzken were shown. These early shows are illustrative for the Gallery's constant aim to introduce some of the most innovative artists at a time when they were still relatively unknown in Brussels.
From the beginning onwards, an important, though not exclusive, focus has been put on Minimal and the Conceptual Art. The significance of photography in conceptual strategies was also fully understood, and as early as 1991 the Gallery was among the first in Europe to show artists such as Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall, Ken Lum, who have been collectively referred to as the Vancouver School.
During the 1990s and in 2000 the program was further elaborated with artists such as Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Jef Geys, Peter Joseph, Shirley Jaffe, Sol Lewitt, Jean-Luc Moulène, Fred Sandback, Niele Toroni, Didier Vermeiren, Michael Venezia. The Gallery also convincingly participated in the timely rediscovery of an older generation of Italian artists who had been eclipsed by the Arte Povera movement. These included Carla Accardi, Gianfranco Baruchello, Enrico Castellani and Mimmo Jodice, all of whom are now powerfully present on the art scene and market.
In more recent years the selection of artists has been of a more prospective nature. The Gallery has amply demonstrated its commitment to a younger generation of artists whose work closely connects to the historically consistent and artistically coherent program: Eric Baudelaire, Iñaki Bonillas, Johannes Döring, Valerie Krause, Tobias Putrih and Johannes Wald and the Belgian artists Sylvie Eyberg, Sophie Nys, Koen van den Broek and Catharina van Eetvelde.
