The Jewish Museum of Belgium & Saint-Martin Bookshop present:
CARNET D’ARTISTES
6.11.2026 – 6.02.2027
This exhibition offers an immersion into the world of artists’ notebooks, bringing together historical and contemporary works. From the studio notebook to the most intimate visual diary, these objects reveal a space of creation where sketches, notes, fragments of text, collages and collected images intersect.
Beyond their preparatory function, notebooks appear here as genuine spaces of self-narration. Whether historical or contemporary, they reveal how artists construct, page by page, a form of self-narrative in which the creative process, personal memory and observation of the world come together. Within these mobile and fragmentary surfaces, gestures, rhythms and temporalities specific to each artistic practice take shape.
The exhibition pays particular attention to notebooks that belong to distinct artistic practices. For certain artists, including Marianne Berenhaut, Sarah Kaliski and Steven Baelen, the notebook is not simply a preparatory tool, but a space of creation in its own right, where drawing, writing and the assemblage of images form works of art. The notebook thus becomes a singular artistic territory, where material experimentation and visual thought develop according to their own continuity.
Alongside these notebooks rooted in established practices, the exhibition will feature notebooks created especially for the occasion by artists from our wider personal and professional circles. Working on Saint-Martin Bookshop notebooks sent to them ahead by the bookshop, these newly created contributions will extend the reflection on the notebook as a living space of creation, bringing together different generations, sensibilities and ways of working.
By bringing together these diverse approaches, the exhibition highlights the notebook as an artistic form at the crossroads of the studio, the personal archive and the diary. It reveals itself here as an autonomous space, conducive to experimental, hybrid and deeply sensitive practices.
Artists : Antoinette d’Ansembourg, Steven Baelen, Aline Bouvy, Marianne Berenhaut, Jean Baptiste Bernadet, Bruno Brunet Busybiz, Alma Feldhandler, Bruno Hellenbosch, Sarah Kaliski, William Kentridge, Harmony Korine, Gabriel Kuri, Raphael Lecoquierre, Antonio Menchen, mountaincutters, Lukas Van Bentum, Sharon Van Overmeiren, Adrien Vescovi, Shoshana Walfish, Hu Zi.
Location : Saint-Martin Bookshop
Rue de Flandre 114, 1000 Bruxelles
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For years dedicated to collecting art books, Saint-Martin Bookshop opened its doors in 2020 on rue de Flandre in Brussels. More than a bookstore, it is a living archive — a unique space open to everyone, where new and second-hand art books sit side by side. Its curated selection brings together artists’ books and small editions, rare catalogues of modern and contemporary artists, works on fashion, photography, and architecture, art magazines for collectors, as well as independent, rare, and out-of-print editions. Guided by intuition rather than trends, every book is chosen for its lasting relevance, visual intelligence, and cultural resonance — whether it comes from major institutions, independent publishers, or underground scenes. It is in this singular place, at the crossroads of the studio and the archive, that the exhibition unfolds.
