Over the 35 years Albert Baronian has been running a gallery, he has shown exceptional commitment, with regular exhibitions which will remain of lasting historic significance in Belgium. In many ways, they set the tone and created a distinct profile with the international circuit thanks to a strong connection with the artists’ views. What’s more, they are simply etched on our minds. We only need to cast tour minds back, for example, to the earliest exhibitions in our country of Mario Merz, Gilberto Zorio, Giulio Paolini but also of local artists, including Walter Swennen and Michel Frère. It was striking how they far exceeded expectation. The level of conviction underlying each initiative was palpable. There is no doubt that they pursued an aesthetic outcome, but there was also room for experimenting. His gallery was always more that a neutral gallery; it was like a lab that we had to, and were able to, experience time and again. Never at any time was the impression created of a commercial Relationship between the artist and the visitor. Albert Baronian was far too involved in his art for that and in the discourse that followed. From a very early stage, the gallery managed to confront us with a new sound within artistic life, both in Belgium and beyond.

Jan Hoet

From: Nothing is permanent. Albert Baronian, profession: gallery owner. City of Brussels and La Lettre volée, Brussels, 2009. Published on the occasion of the exhibition “Nothing is permanent. Albert Baronian, profession: gallery owner”, in La Centrale Electrique, Centre for Contemporary Art, Brussels, 19 June until 27 September 2009