Marking 50 years of Sotheby's in the Belgian capital, an esoteric selling exhibition is on view at Sotheby's Brussels during April and into May. Spanning painting, sculpture and multimedia from Soulages to Christo via a selection of Belgian artists, curators François de Coninck and Emmanuel Van de Putte address questions of Belgian identity - and the very irreverent Belgian sense of humour, inspired by the nation's tricolore flag.

This spring, Sotheby's celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in Brussels, the capital of a country shaped by overlapping histories, cultures and languages, "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Black' takes the Belgian flag as a starting point, and presents a group of works that reflect not only Belgian identity - but in a provocative and thought-provoking and not unfunny curation - challenges the very fundamentals of what a national flag stands for. Co-curators Emmanuel Van de Putte and François de Coninck talk us through the exhibition's genesis within the context of Sotheby's Belgian half-century.

So, let’s begin with 50 years of Sotheby's in Brussels! Emmanuel – what made Sotheby's open in Brussels back in 1974? Emmanuel Van den Putte: Belgium has always had a big collector tradition, since the Middle Ages, when we had the St. Luke’s Guild [the artist’s guild, first identified in Antwerp in 1382] for artists in the Low countries. And when there are productive artists, then you also have collectors. These painters were first collected by the church and the courts. But at the same time, a market was being created for private collectors. And that has not really changed since the Middle Ages. There is that tradition of collectors, collecting in families. collecting decorative arts, paintings and so on. People would inherit art, pass it over to the next generation. Generations each have their own interests and tastes, these things change, and art collections change too. So, we have that tradition and then in Belgium, after the war, and into the 1950s and1960s, you continued to have important collectors, now specialising in contemporary art. And from an early stage, those collectors pushed to have contemporary art museums, which also helped to develop that scene in Belgium.

Which has continued to the present day. How did Sotheby’s come to launch in Brussels, in 1974?
Emmanuel: Before Sotheby’s opened this selling location in 1974, previously, it had been a ‘rep’ office, a representative office, which of course is not the same as a selling location. So, in 1974 we launched this office to better help long-term clients and contacts, to ensure we were always there for them, long term. Auctions are of course, our main area of focus but this has now changed to a very wide range of activities we do for our clients. As well as consigning works to sell abroad, we offer our clients the chance to buy. So, we have a lot of collectors selling things, at the same time there is also a new generation buying.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/red-yellow-black-sothebys-celebrates-50-years-in-brussels