Anthony Duffeleer | Rik Rosseels Gallery
The work pictured below is called Let them eat cake I. It was created in 2020 and retitled in 2025. Its original title was No Cookie. It was cast in porcelain and covered in fake gold leaf. It’s currently on show in a vitrine, in a gallery, in Antwerp’s gallery district. Which is quite funny, considering it’s… a cookie.
Quite an iconic cookie though, if you’re Belgian. Lotus makes Biscoff: the small, dense biscuit that’s ubiquitous on supermarket shelves, airline snack trolleys and vending machines around the world. I never knew Biscoff was Belgian. Most of the locals visiting Rik Rosseels Gallery, home of the vitrine the work is in, will know. The sight of this little golden biscuit might even induce some (dormant) national pride.
It’s tempting for me to draw links between the work and the unfamiliar country I saw it in. I’d never visited Antwerp before, and only had visited Belgium on a school trip 30 years ago, and a work trip 10 years ago. All three trips were brief.
When I was there, one thing my host told me is that it’s best to speak English directly in Antwerp, rather than make any attempt at French or Flemish. Wouldn’t it be more polite to at least try, I asked? No, he said. Belgians are very used to being accommodating to larger neighbours. I found that really nice - but also a bit sad.
There’s something similarly self-effacing in a local artist’s decision to cast a tiny biscuit in porcelain and cover it in (fake) gold. It’s national pride - sure - that biscuit is famous - but it’s a quiet and ironic pride. Nobody outside Belgium knows the biscuit’s Belgian.
We visited the gallery during its opening, by chance, walking by. The crowd spilled onto the street. There was a food truck serving (delicious) croquettes. Duffeleer’s plinth, with its tiny biscuit, was hidden to me at first, because the gallery had set up a food and drinks table in front of it. They were serving cava and cake to anyone who wanted them.
Opening Vlaamse Kaai: Amber Geuns - Anthony Duffeleer - Tom Woestenborghs - Stefan Annerel - Greet Billet is at Rik Rosseels Gallery (Antwerp). 01 - 29 March 2025