Kobe Matthys

Agentschap is a collective practice initiated by Kobe Matthys and continued as a shared project by Agency vzw following his death on 18 May 2023. Kobe Matthys was an artist and activist based in Brussels, committed to the collective and the commons. In 1992, he founded Agentschap or Agency, through which he explored how intellectual property law shapes creation, authorship, originality, ownership and the status of the artwork. Since his death in 2023, Agency has continued as a public domain initiative. Matthys was equally committed to social justice and solidarity, playing an active role in initiatives such as the Universal Embassy and State of the Arts (SOTA). He contributed to the reform of the artists' statute and collaborated on collective models for living, working, garden management and heritage conservation, including Co-Post in Saint-Gilles and the Zenne Garden in Forest. Agency received the Belgian Art Prize in 2020 and the Ultima Prize for Visual Arts in 2021. Kobe Matthys passed away in 2023.