"Art is often too calculated" With his project Art Points, the Belgian artist and gallery holder Jan Gielens promotes art in public places. (by Michael Allhoff) Whether it be cafes, bars and restaurants, boutiques, shopping centres, hotels or even fitness clubs, there hardly is a place on the Costa Blanca where Jan Gielens couldn't imagine founding a new Art Point. Art Point? It means, translated approximately, gathering point for Art. For the Belgian artist and gallery holder Jan Gielens, the different Art Points represent a network of coordinates along the Costa Blanca, through which he wants to bring the art into the public spaces. "The Art business is much too directed by the big international galleries, who decide what is going to be trendy at the moment" explains Jan Gielens. " I want to present an alternative platform to the artists". In more than 20 places on the Costa Blanca, the creative Belgian has already established non-stop exhibitions of renowned artists, from Denia in the North to Rojales and Guardamar in the South. There is, for example, the cafe "El Bar" in Calpe: Here, since 30 october and until july next year, the English Neil Martin exhibits his works. Or the Bar number 10 in the caves of Rojales: In November, the american video artist Tantra Bensko celebrated there her vernissage for an exhibition of digital anti-war art. In the bar "El Racó" in Altea, a more than hundred year old house in front of the church, which once served as townhall for the idyllic coastal village, right now the columbian painter Jorge Luís Rosensvaig exhibits his placative ornamentalistic acrylic works with motives of the latin-american history. It is a network of dozens of artists from italy, germany, England, France, Spain and USA, that Jan Gielens has called into life. The gallery owner transmits exhibitions rooms, which distinguish themselves by a very own selected beautiful atmosphere. Jan Gielens has lived for over 15 years in Elche. In the Campo de Elche, amidst the cultivated huerta landscape with its orange fields and palmtrees, which are irrigated through a labyrinth of acequias (water channels laid by the arabs), the 65 year old non-conformist has bought himself a Finca from the seventeenth century and has installed his atelier there. Under the artist name of Aguila (eagle) he creates big sized artworks of a subtle, intellectual beauty, which in their minimalistic simplicity, fascinate the viewer. "Art is often too visual, too calculated" he says, "so the soul gets lost, the depth of the art". In his artworks, the studied designer uses self made pigments of pulverized iron or steal, which work magnetically and "irradiate a fine electricty into the room". It is his intention to create an energetic interference between the image and the viewer: "In this way, I achieve to make light sculptures, which one can feel but hardly see" explains the experimental visionairy his concept of "dynamic stability": "The image is a bridge, but to me the important is not the image". With artistic projects in the Algarve and in North Afrika, Jan Gielens engages himself for a harmonic cohabitation of all cultures. Thus he founded the Museum and University Lasoberana: in Western Sahara Águila works on an event with the motto "inside is outside, outside is inside". info: www.artpointsonline.com ERROR:  Jan Gielens/Aguila is not and has never been a gallery owner...