Deweer Gallery (est. 1979) is a leading second-generation gallery specialized in national and international contemporary art. Gerald and Bart Deweer are its owners and directors. The gallery is located in a building with approximately 1,200 m² of exhibition spaces in the rural town of Otegem, in Belgium. Deweer Gallery, representing more than twenty artists, focuses exclusively on work that evinces a combination of critical and poetic qualities. Well-known for its representation of artists such as Stephan Balkenhol, Jan Fabre, Günther Förg, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and Panamarenko, the gallery has a reputation for building artists. Deweer Gallery has been working together with these artists for more than two/three decades. The early detection of talent is its trademark. It is evident in, among other things, their current supporting of artists such as Melissa Gordon, George Little, Enrique Marty, Benjamin Moravec, Nasan Tur, Anna Vogel and Andy Wauman.

HISTORY

From father to sons

Mark Deweer's passion for collecting art led to the creation of Deweer Gallery in 1979. Mark was the driving force and the initiator. His nose for artistic talent and his business acumen, along with the unconditional support of his wife Marleen Deweer, made for an ideal combination that would make the realization of his dream possible.

Raised surrounded by art, their two sons, Gerald and Bart Deweer, know the world of art from within. Gradually, they took over the management of the gallery. Gerald and Bart want the gallery to continue to play a dynamic, ambitious and leading role on the international contemporary art scene. They aim to continue to promote artists on the basis of strong internal/external exhibitions and participations in international art fairs such as Art Cologne (since 1995), ARCO Madrid (since 2001) and recently also miart (Fiera Milano).

Building

Since the middle of the 1980s, Deweer Gallery is located in an unusually spacious building that once housed a small industrial enterprise. In 2011-2012, the spaces of the gallery were thoroughly renovated. Far-reaching architectural interventions were carried out, such as a doubling of the publicly accessible spaces (the lobby and three exhibition rooms) to a total area of approximately 1200m². In September 2012, the new gallery opened with the group exhibition 'Re-Opening', which clearly showcased the rejuvenation and renewal of the gallery program.

A story of boldness

In the beginning of the 1980s, Deweer Gallery was the first Belgian gallery to introduce the German Neue Wilde and the Italian Transavanguardia. The gallery presented individual exhibitions by, among others, Georg Baselitz, A.R. Penck, Rainer Fetting, Enzo Cucchi and Mimmo Paladino. At the same time, the gallery also took on the promotion of contemporary Belgian artists. In 1983, Deweer Gallery organized its first exhibition with Panamarenko. This was followed in 1985 with a first exhibition of Jan Fabre. Over the course of 30 years, the gallery showed each important chapter in Fabre's visual art practice on the basis of a solo show.

In the second half of the 1980s, Deweer Gallery was the first non-German gallery to represent the German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol. Since the first exhibition in 1987, the artist has presented no less than 12 exhibitions in Otegem.

In the 1990s, Deweer Gallery presented multiple solo exhibitions by a number of international artists with strong, individual positions in the art world, such as zoals Siegfried Anzinger (Austria, > 1997), Günter Brus (Austria, > 1985), Tony Cragg (Great Britain, > 1995), Günther Förg (Germany, > 1995), Ilya Kabakov (Ukraine, > 1992), Imi Knoebel (Germany, > 1992), Gerhard Merz (Germany, > 1995), Aernout Mik (Netherlands, > 1992), Thomas Ruff (Germany, > 1993) en Mark Wallinger (Great Britain, > 1997). A monographic catalog published by the gallery accompanied each of these exhibitions.

The new millennium began with the introduction of the Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen. His ongoing Cosmopolitan Chicken Project was shown in several exhibitions. The first two decades of the new century also saw the start of a series of collaborations with new artists: Matthieu Laurette (France, > 2004), Sergey Bratkov (Ukraine, > 2006), Enrique Marty (Spain, > 2006), Benjamin Moravec (France, > 2006), Andy Wauman (Belgium, > 2006), Stefaan Dheedene (Belgium, > 2007), Michaël Aerts (Belgium, > 2008), Cristina Lucas (Spain, >2008), Boris Mikhailov (Ukraine, >2009), Tatjana Gerhard (Switzerland, > 2010), Matthew Lutz-Kinoy (United States, >2011), Norbert Witzgall (Germany, >2011), Keren Cytter (Israel, >2013), Kasia Fudakowski (Great Britain, >2013), Jan De Cock (Belgium, >2013), Melissa Gordon (United States/Great Britain, > 2014) , Shirana Shahbazi (Iran/Switzerland, > 2014), George Little (Denmark, > 2014), Michael Seidner (Germany, > 2014), Marc Bauer (Switzerland, > 2015), Thomas Kratz (Germany, >2015), Anna Vogel (Germany, > 2016), Nasan Tur (Turkey > 2016), Gabriele Beveridge (Great Britain, > 2016), Aida Mahmudova (Azerbaijan, > 2017) and Luca Monterastelli (Italy, > 2017).

Interspersed in this remarkable list of solo shows are the thematic group shows which Deweer Gallery presented on a regular basis, and which also constitute milestones in the rich exhibition history of the gallery. The most important among these include: 'Ouverture' (1985, on the occasion of the moving of the Gallery to its present location in the Tiegemstraat 6A), 'Xth Anniversary Show' (1989), 'A Painting Show' (1994, on the occasion of the inauguration of the current Room II), 'ECLiPS' (2004, on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of the gallery and presented in the former electric power station Transfo in Zwevegem), the absolutely unique project 'Art of the Loom - 32 Tapestries woven on the looms of Mark Deweer's factory, 1985-2010' (2011), 'Re-Opening' (2012, with a two-part publication) and 'Modern Talk' (2016), a group show in which Melissa Gordon, George Little and Thomas Kratz created a response to two seminal paintings by Günther Förg in the form of new, personal works. In the autumn of 2017, a group exhibition is scheduled of artists working with the medium of photography.

Today, Deweer Gallery relentlessly carries forward its historical momentum with a resolute choice for renewal.