Simon Delobel wakes up daily between 6 and 6.30 a.m., takes care of the members of his family, pays the bills with various jobs, incidentally within the art world, and uses most of his so-called free time to second artists to realize exhibition and book projects. He most of the time goes to sleep before 12 a.m..
Simon Delobel was born and raised in Lille (France) in 1981. He studied art history and museology at Ecole du Louvre in Paris, where he specialized in the art and archeology of India and Southeast Asia and, more specifically, in the history of colonial exhibitions and colonial museums. His come to Belgium didn't allow him to work further on those subjects. Based in Antwerp, he collaborated as curator-director for more than eight years with two Belgian art collectors who opened in 2007 and 2012 their own exhibition spaces in Kemzeke (Verbeke Foundation) and Herentals (Art Center Hugo Voeten). There he organized various exhibitions and collection presentations related to collages, bio art, ecological art, and Bulgarian modern and contemporary art. In parallel with this institutional curatorial activity, he ran for five years trampoline, a gallery of contemporary art in the city of Antwerp.
Between October 2018 and his nomination as director of KIOSK Ghent in October 2020, Simon Delobel created 15 galleries for art fairs, private houses or abandoned spaces (Post Gallery, +23243493810761811553964, Simon Delobel Gallery, Paid by the artist, Sisyphus Gallery, La Simonie, The Bakkery Gallery, 1986, Office central pour la documentation artistique locale et internationale, White Whale Gallery, Moonstreet, Personne n'en veut, j'achète., Rita Lompen, Yuri G. Gallery)
Reluctant to the notion of success and failure, Simon Delobel avoids as much as possible contemporary branding strategies to concentrate on the quality of each human relationship. His personal artistic taste constitutes his worst enemy.