ceramic brussels
ceramic brussels is the first international contemporary art fair dedicated to ceramics.
ceramic brussels develops an international marketplace and exchange platform while offering the encounter of curated content within a unique experience. Founded in January 2024, ceramic brussels is a committed fair, firmly focused on promoting contemporary ceramics and built around an intense programme of visits, exhibitions, and talks.
Through an original and immersive scenography, the fair is conceived above all as a laboratory for encounters between galleries, collectors, and art enthusiasts, fostering discovery and the circulation of perspectives around contemporary ceramics. Set in an exceptional venue in the heart of Europe, ceramic brussels encourages reflection on a multifaceted medium that continues to explore and push its own boundaries.
Since its first edition, the fair has chosen to invite an artist of honour and to highlight their work through a series of initiatives throughout the fair, including entrance exhibitions, talks, and exclusive encounters.
In 2026, the artist Elmar Trenkwalder will be the guest of honour, following American artist Elizabeth Jaeger (guest of honour 2025) and Belgian artist Johan Creten (guest of honour 2024).
From its second edition onwards, ceramic brussels broadened its scope by integrating modern ceramics, strengthening institutional participation, and reinforcing its international dimension, notably through the introduction of a country focus (Norway 2025, Spain 2026).
Each year, ceramic brussels brings together an exceptional panorama of Belgian and international galleries—both established and emerging, specialised and multidisciplinary. In January 2025, the fair welcomed 65 international galleries, presented more than 200 artists, and received 17,840 visitors.
ceramic brussels aims to showcase the vitality and diversity of contemporary ceramics practice, support contemporary creation and stimulate new exchanges between artists, institutions, galleries and the audience.
4 objectives:
↘ to showcase the diversity of artistic approaches to ceramics through the selection of international galleries and the involvement of leading global institutions and key players
↘ to offer a unique forum for high-level exchanges, networking, and induce interactions and collaborations
↘ to deliver the ceramic brussels art prize, a European call for projects with an international jury, and several additional prizes to be awarded during the fair
↘ to support the production and dissemination of content dedicated to ceramics
The fair unfolds through an original and ambitious scenography, designed to offer optimal exhibition conditions and to encourage the discovery of the works and installations presented by the galleries.
A variety of spaces have been defined and developed to provide visitors with a seamless and immersive experience. Alongside the two main halls hosting more than 60 galleries, the fair is structured around several complementary areas, each offering distinct content.
The entrance of the fair is conceived as a space of transition and discovery, successively hosting the collective exhibition of the ceramic brussels art prize and the exhibition dedicated to the guest of honour. Hall C is designed as a space for encounters and conviviality: it hosts the programme of talks and conferences, a dedicated publishers’ area, as well as a lounge area including a bar, a restaurant, and several pop-ups, including MOK, Fernand Obb, and Flora.
→ View the 2026 fair map here
As part of the ceramic brussels art prize, the scenography of the laureates’ exhibition was entrusted to A S C P studio, following an open call for projects jointly launched by MAD Brussels (Center for Fashion & Design), Action et Service (A+S) and ceramic brussels.
Specialising in image-making and spatial design, the studio conceived Vestiges 2.0, a scenography that revisits the codes of ruins and museums. Playing on the tension between the permanence of matter and the volatility of the digital, the installation places each work in dialogue with its digital avatar, inviting visitors to question the traces our era will leave for future generations.
The fair has the support of renowned international experts in the field of ceramics as its advisory board:
Trained as a historian and art historian, her joyful erudition takes her to the history of clothing - to ceramics - or to contemporary creation, which she readily invites as a counterpoint to surprise the visitor’s eye and take it where it wouldn’t go! At the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, which she has been directing since 2019, Christine Germain-Donnat played a decisive role in steering a vast renovation project that led to the museum’s reopening in 2021, as well as a major overhaul of its collections. Christine Germain-Donnat has previously worked at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, led the redeployment of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs et de la Mode to the Château Borély in Marseille, and directed the Musée National de la Céramique (Département du Patrimoine et des Collections) at Sèvres-Cité de la Céramique.
Florence Reckinger-Taddeï pursued a career in law, in Luxemburg and, simultaneously, initiated and supported many charitable and cultural projects linked to her passion for the arts. Today, she dedicates her time entirely to supporting the arts, organising exhibitions and the publication of art related books.
In 2019, she founded the Regala project and gallery in Arles, hosting artist residencies and an exhibition space, as well as artists’s monographies, the "Cahiers Regala". The first exhibition was dedicated to Christian Lacroix who, amongst drawings, paintings, photographies, presented his first ceramics.
Florence is President of les Amis des Musées du Luxembourg, and founder and President of Lët’z Arles and the Luxembourg Photography Award. She is an administrator for the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Luxembourg (Mudam), for the Edward Steichen Award Luxembourg, for Les Rencontres d’Arles and for the Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie (ENSP). She is a member of the board of directors of the Luxembourg Red Cross, and has helped to introduce them to many craftspeople she has met on her travels, as well as organising a charity auction at the annual Red Cross Ball which she chaired for 20 years. Finally, she is one of the ambassadors for Homo Faber.
Ludovic Recchia is an art historian curator specialising in modern and contemporary ceramics. Curator of the European decorative arts collections at the Royal Museum of Mariemont from 2003 to 2022, he is presently director and curator of Keramis Museum and Art Center (FWB), an institution that he founded in 2015. Since 2016, he has been a membre of the International Academy of Ceramics. As part of exhibition offices, he publishes lots of books dedicated to contemporary ceramists including Marc Alberghina (2023), Daniel Pontoreau (2022), Charlotte Coquen (2017) Antoine de Vinck (2015), Frank Steyaert (2016), Marc Feulien (2006), Emile Desmedt (2005) and Johan Creten (2007).
Geertje Jacobs is Director of the European Ceramics Centre (EKWC) in the Netherlands, an international artists’ residency and a centre of excellence for ceramics.
For 50 years now, artists, designers and architects from all over the world have been working there to experiment with clay. The EKWC is the combination of world-class facilities, the presence of consultants with internationally leading technical knowledge and the openness to freely share recipes, processes and innovation.
Geertje Jacobs studied art history in Utrecht and Florence and has worked in the museum sector for over 15 years (notably at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Textile Museum in Tilburg and the National Glassmuseum in Leerdam).
Magdalena Gerber is an artist based in Geneva.
Her artistic research evolves between the fields of art and design. Alongside her sculptural projects in the studio, her work explores changes in the industrial manufacture of porcelain in Switzerland. Since 2013, she has been the director of CERCCO, the Centre for Contemporary Ceramics at HEAD - Geneva, where she works as a lecturer in art and design.
She holds a BA in Ceramic Sculpture and an MAS in Art | Design and Innovation from the University of Art and Design Basel.
Trained in law, he set up a contemporary art gallery in Rennes where he championed avant-garde artists such as Bram van Velde, Hartung, Messagier, Soulages and Velichovic...
He helped to set up the FIAC organising committee. He then ran the Beaubourg 2 gallery with Pierre Nahon and Patrice Trigano, and then the Travers gallery.
As director of communications and partnerships at OIP, a company specialising in the organisation of trade fairs, he played an active part in the development of the FIAC, the Salon du Livre and the Salon Nautique.
He also founded HJD & Cie, was Curator of summer exhibitions in La Rochelle (Richard Texier, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Hervé Di Rosa), contributed to the creation of Art Paris Abu Dhabi, and supported Ateliers d'art de France in the creation of the first Biennale des Métiers d'art at the Grand Palais.
He is involved in La Corderie Royale de Rochefort (Centre international de la mer), La Source, and is the President of La Source Hermine.
The fair is co-managed by a Franco-Belgian duo, Gilles Parmentier and Jean-Marc Dimanche.
They both initiated several major exhibitions, artistic events and/or fairs in Luxembourg, France, Belgium. They share the running of the fair, playing on the strength of their complementary skills.
After more than 10 years working in communication and human resources, in 2011, Gilles Parmentier was appointed director of the Reporters agency, a reference in Belgium specialised in photojournalism and video.
In 2017, he founded Studio Gondo (VO Group), which links the artistic world with businesses and brands. From 2018 to 2024, he was Fair Director of Art on Paper, the international drawing fair in Brussels, which he manages and develops. Brussels Drawing Week, organised in partnership with more than 30 Brussels cultural institutions, was his brainchild.
Today he works on numerous artistic and creative projects and events.
After creating and directing the design agency V.I.T.R.I.O.L. for 20 years, he founded in 2008, with Florence Guillier-Bernard, Maison Parisienne, a traveling gallery dedicated to French crafts, in the framework of which he organised more than fifty exhibitions in various European capitals.
At the beginning of 2016, he was called as advisor to H.R.H. the Grand Duchess Heiress of Luxembourg, and worked with her on the implementation of the biennial De Mains De Maîtres, of which he is now general commissioner.
In parallel, he directed, between March 2019, the date of its opening in Brussels, and June 2022, ELEVEN STEENS, a private space dedicated to Art and Matter, open to all areas of creation, be it the plastic arts, design, crafts, architecture or fashion.
Independent curator, he accompanies numerous exhibitions in the field of crafts and contemporary art, whether in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. For the past five years he has been a contributor to the Revue de la Céramique et du Verre and has contributed to numerous catalogues and artists' books.
gilles@ceramic.brussels
+32 476 91 07 87
→ ceramic-brussels/founders
jean-marc@ceramic.brussels
+33 6 16 24 08 28
→ ceramic-brussels/founders
tiphaine@ceramic.brussels
+32 492 57 65 51
+32 472 45 35 49
info@ceramic.brussels
