The Discovery Acquisition Prize 2025 is awarded to Thomas Verstraeten for his video work URBI ET ORBI (2024) and the accompanying scale model.
Verstraeten is a significant figure in the Belgian arts. His work stands out for its integration of visual and performing arts, as well as its ability to evoke the surreal within everyday contexts. URBI ET ORBI is notable for its ambition: it restages a street scene from his hometown of Antwerp inside a theatre, accompanied by a commissioned musical score and live performance, and is transformed into a video artwork through deliberate cinematic techniques.
The jury values the work's ambition on multiple levels. It engages directly with current social realities and local communities while avoiding sentimentality. The piece rethinks the notion of performance - not merely documenting an event, but reworking a found situation into a new artistic form.
URBI ET ORBI also raises questions about access to art, merging references to both high art and urban life. It blurs the boundaries between the street and the stage, aligning with the museum's mission to reflect on its role as a public institution - both as a civic actor and a constructed space within the city and society.
The jury also acknowledges the commitment of the gallery, FRED&FERRY (Antwerp), which has taken a risk in presenting a complex, performance-based work within the commercial context of an art fair. The presentation functions as an exhibition format rather than solely a sales platform.
About the prize:
Formerly the Discovery Prize, this award now focuses on supporting museum collections. Instead of rewarding the winning gallery for the best booth presentation in the Discovery section, the prize will now take the form of an increased acquisition budget-up to €10,000 -for purchasing an artwork for a museum collection.
For Art Brussels 2025, the selected institution will be the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, with Inga Rossi-Schrimpf (Director of Collections) and Pierre-Yves Desaive (Curator) joining the previously announced jury - Marjolaine Lévy (Curator), Tim Roerig (Curator), and Axel Wieder (Curator). This revised format strengthens the prize's impact by providing meaningful recognition and support to the artist, the gallery, and the museum.
The Discovery Prize is supported by Moleskine.
