'Michaël Borremans' by Antoine Clauss and Louis Dufreche
2026
Two months before his Paris show at David Zwirner, we drove up to meet Michaël Borremans in his Ghent studio. We coordinated our questions by the banks of the Lys, under a clear, grey, even light that seemed to define the appeal for the painter to paint only with the natural Belgian daylight that followed us to the bare façade of a former industrial building in one of Ghent’s layered neighbourhoods. From the garage, where collection cars sit, through the studio—past crates, research tables and canvases in progress—to the room where he plays music, we climbed a metal staircase to his library. There, on the corner of a table holding a teapot and our notes, the conversation began. A meeting we believe we will remember as much for its atmosphere as for its sayings: on learning to paint, nihilism paired with humour, and beauty as a way to be controversial. You’ll tell us.
