'A Max De Vos' Liam Gillick

‘A Max De Vos’ is a novel by Liam Gillick. A fairy tale in 25 chapters, littered with Belgian proverbs, ‘A Max De Vos’ alternates between a flaneuristic tour of the historical surroundings of the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts and the fortunes of a young artist making his way to that very institution, without ever arriving. Part fiction, part autobiographical, the novel also takes cues from historical sources on the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts and a 1918 British book of stories collected by Jean De Bosschere titled “Folk Tales of Flanders”. 

Started some years ago in Japan, the artist reworked the manuscript to coincide with ‘Project Palace: A Centenary’, an exhibition celebrating the 100th ­anniversary of the founding of the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts in 1922.