L’ Office d’Art Contemporain intends to present in the international arena the work of visual artists working in the French Community of Belgium and Brussels, the capital of Europe. This project was initiated 4 years ago the summer of 2009 at Rauma Art Museum and it then moved to Galleria Maaret Finnberg in Turku (Finland) and later to Supermarket Art Fair in Stockholm in February 2011.

The artists of L’ Office d’Art Contemporain with whom I have co-operated already for a long time have different origins: Germany, Portugal, France, Finland, Spain, Wallonia and Brussels. These artists have their own artistic and social networks that form the current network of L’ Office d’Art Contemporain.

The exhibition explores various tendencies in artistic expression, bringing together a range of individuals whose immersion in the contemporary art world leaves the visitor free to move in the world of each artist.

Jean-Marie Stroobants, director

Our artists are: Isabel Baraona, drawing, Marcus Bering, installation, objects, David Clément, seriprints, Dany Danino, drawing, Jacques Dujardin, painting, Benoît Félix, Marco Dessardo video, Petri Hytönen, watercolour, Alice Janne, painting, Mikko Paakkola, painting, Juan Paparella, drawing, Manuel Alves Pereira, happening, photo, Jean-Marie Stroobants, painting.

The « Office d’Art Contemporain » (« Office for Contemporary Art ») is an art centre that was founded in 1993 in Brussels in Belgium. Up to now we have presented some one hundred visual artists with a panoramic and at the same time an intimate view of contemporary artistic creativity. The engagement in our cultural and artistic policy is based on principles of internationalism, pragmatism, efficacy and accessibility. We are calling the audience to meet unique, multidiscipline and often unexpected experiences where the art has a role to act, guide, communicate and initiate. Our work is founded on our will to serve as a springboard and a place of discovery. That is what makes us special, the dialogue we seek with the artist, within his workshop, with final purpose of placing his works in the space-time framework we live in.

Our objectives are:
1. To exhibit regularly young artists linked in the international milieu of Brussels where they can add their own cultural backgrounds and realities. This creates a fresh picture of the atmosphere of today, as well as our way of presenting the already well established artists in their less known paths.
2. To stimulate the exchanges and interlocutions between various associations and institutions working in the field of visual arts of today.
3. To promote and diffuse contemporary art in all of its forms.