Artflame Noir is Belgian art collective / production house founded in 2006 by Alexander Lance, but it’s origins go back to 2002 and the birth of anarcho-artistic festival Bordello.

With the changes in government policy, the city of Antwerpen decided to close down 17 out of 23 streets that comprised the Red Light district in the north of the city. As the whole closure happened quickly and there was a big legal fight to keep the area open, most of the rooms and windows where prostitutes worked were left they were while district was open.

Led by Kris Verdonck, a social initiative was created by underground art scene, to emancipate this neighborhood and ensure the area doesn’t die.

And international crew of artists was gathered to perform, exhibit and promote art in rooms and windows formerly reserved only for a different kind of entertainment.
Bespoke art pieces were made exploring sexuality, moral values and bohemian lifestyle.

For the next 3 months one weekend a month was reserved for 72 hours of artistic mayhem and celebration of life, sex and bohemia.

It was in this environment that a theater composer and installation Alex Lance found his place, bringing to life 3 installations and 4 separate performance art pieces – 2 of which were featured at the front page of Belgian newspaper Le Soir, giving him a fertile platform to explore the depths of conceptual and performance art.

In the years that followed as Alex explored different media for artistic expression, finally founding multimedia production house Artflame Noir in 2006, a year later two more people joined him on this quest – Musician and screenwriter Frederik Sebastian Vermeulen and photographer Ellie van den Brande. Together they became a collective exploring experimental film and video, dark photography and theater of absurd.

Often indulging in arts that questioned the concepts of beauty, sanity and darkness of human souk and mind, they produced short films, conceptual installations and theater plays, featured throughout Europe in art and film festivals, individual exhibitions and events.

Artflame Noir became inactive in 2010, as individual projects of all three members took too much time and resources to continue, but collective never officially stopped to exist, and they remain involved in each others work to date.

Here you will find a collection of some of their most notable performances and artworks.