Lodovico Corsini is pleased to announce the inauguration of a new, permanent location in Brussels. Ahead of significant renovation works to come, the gallery presents First Date, an introductory exhibition that unfolds within the building as is: a former paint factory, later a hybrid office-cum-skatepark, now the gallery’s fixed address. Gathering works by represented artists alongside those of longstanding collaborators, affinities, and admired peers, the exhibition is animated by the excitement of a beginning. Like a first encounter, it is driven by curiosity, generosity, risk, and the possibility of unexpected connections.
Ideas of layering, sedimentation, and transformation weave throughout the exhibition, from which a strong sense of place emerges. Traces of successive lives and uses remain visible: fragments of previous occupiers coexist with more recent interventions, while stripped-back walls reveal earlier layers of construction, the building’s bare bones. The same logic of partial disclosure continues through a peephole in a door, offering visitors a glimpse behind the scenes of the ongoing renovation. First Date thus operates as both a preview of the gallery’s future and a peek through the strata of the past. The building’s initial life was as the home of Maison Linckx, founded in 1934. Known for its casein-based powdered paints, prized for their chalk-like finish and rich pigments, the factory was closely tied to Brussels’ artistic landscape, supplying materials to both artists and artisans. The gallery’s implantation marks a new phase in the life of the building, yet one that remains attuned to its genius loci: a place shaped by the making, circulation, and encounter of artistic ideas and materials.
