Exhibitions | Brafa Art Fair

BRÜSSEL

(Re) Tracing collections

Steve Bandoma (Kinshasa, 1981), Corvée, 2020 © Steve Bandoma

AfricaMuseum
Leuvensesteenweg 13
3080 Tervuren
www.africamuseum.be
19.01.2024 > 24.09.2024

(Re) Tracing collections

An exhibition focusing on research into the provenance of the AfricaMuseum's collections. This exhibition explores new contemporary interpretations and future perspectives. Most of these collections were acquired during the colonial period in the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. By questioning the origins of its collections, the museum aims to contribute to a debate on its history and its impact on society.

19.01.2024 > 24.09.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Josef Hoffmann - Falling for beauty

Josef Hoffmann, MAK, GO 2005 © MAK Katrin Wisskirchen

Art & History Museum
Parc du Cinquantenaire 10
1000 Brussels
www.artandhistory.museum
06.10.2023 > 14.04.2024

Josef Hoffmann - Falling for beauty

The exhibition Josef Hoffmann - Falling for Beauty wishes to offer a broader perspective by presenting Hoffmann’s artistry, for the first time in Belgium, as it developed through six decades of production. The sections of the exhibition are oriented around one or more architectural models that serve as epitomes and key references to consider constellations of furniture, objects, designs, textiles, and documents. In this regard, a juxtaposition of multiple narratives is proposed, covering every aspect of Hoffmann’s artistic production: architecture, design, decorative arts, scenography, writing and teaching. In addition, attention is paid to his creative method as well as his use of colour. This exhibition at the Art & History Museum in Brussels provides an exceptional opportunity to discover an artist who understood beauty as an absolute requirement for individual and social transformation.

06.10.2023 > 14.04.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Georgia: A Story of Encounters

Gold disc, Gonio, 1st-2nd century © Batumi archeological museum

Art & History Museum
Parc du Cinquantenaire 10
1000 Brussels
www.artandhistory.museum
27.10.2023 > 18.02.2024

Georgia: A Story of Encounters

In the context of Europalia Georgia, the Art & History Museum will be hosting a heritage exhibition focusing on the culture, history, and art of Georgia since the Neolithic period. At the crossroads between East and West, traversed by trade routes linked to the Silk Roads, and always coveted by the great powers surrounding it, Georgia has been a place of encounters and exchanges from which it has drawn cultural nourishment. The result is a heritage of unparalleled richness.

27.10.2023 > 18.02.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

RESTART

Atomium
Place de l’Atomium
1020 Brussels
www.atomium.be
03.02.2023 >

RESTART

A digital experience, immersing you in sound & light. The Atomium has invited the artist collective Visual System to occupy its exhibition spaces, devoting its programme to digital art. RESTART, a temporary exhibition, will depict the Atomium in light and sound. This original project exploits the magic of the space and accentuates the building's heritage richness.

03.02.2023 >

event website

BRÜSSEL

inspired by Love

Belfius Art Gallery
Belfius Tower, Place Charles Rogier 11
1210 Brussels
www.belfius-art-collection.be
11.11.2023 > 22.06.2024

inspired by Love

The exhibition inspired by Love takes us on a tour of the recent acquisitions of the Belfius Art Collection. Behind each powerful work lies a passionate artist. The exhibition shares this passion by revealing where and how these artists work and by inviting us to see the world through the unique prism of their gaze. inspired by Love goes one step further: for this exhibition, the artists have immersed themselves in the Belfius Art Collection and reveal the works or artists that inspire and touch them the most. The promise of a fascinating journey to the rhythm of Belfius' Love for Belgian art!

11.11.2023 > 22.06.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Water

Kim Tschang-Yeul, Goutte d'eau, 1989 (detail)

Boghossian Foundation - Villa Empain
Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67
1050 Brussels
www.villaempain.com
19.10.2023 > 10.03.2024

Water

From the earliest times to the present day, water has always been a source of fascination and inspiration due to its vital and spiritual dimension. The relationship between living beings and the world is formed by water. The Boghossian Foundation presents the exhibition Water, a poetic and emotional exploration into the oeuvre of South Korean artist Kim Tschang-Yeul, renowned for his depictions of water droplets. The exhibition tackles the various manifestations of water through a wealth of contemporary artworks and in situ installations by artists from all backgrounds. Set in the breath-taking Art Deco setting of the Villa Empain, Water proposes a myriad of unique artistic approaches by artists exploring a timeless and universal theme. From the smallest droplet of water to the vastness of the ocean, Water explores the ever-changing states of water and the different ways it is used by artists summoning different aesthetic, poetic, sensory or political approaches.

19.10.2023 > 10.03.2024

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BRÜSSEL

Kapwani Kiwanga. Rootwork

Bozar - Centre for Fine Arts
Rue Ravenstein 23
1000 Brussels
www.bozar.be
10.11.2023 > 10.03.2024

Kapwani Kiwanga. Rootwork

In parallel with the exhibition Victor Horta and the Grammar of Art Nouveau, the French and Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga has been invited to create new work centred on a rug with an ornamental floral pattern. The decorative allure of this floor covering is inspired by Art Nouveau and alludes to the shared histories between territories home to botanic species that were imported to Belgium. Kapwani Kiwanga is a conceptual multimedia artist who works with sound, film, performance, and objects. Her art is often based on archival research. Kiwanga addresses not only the past, but also the future. In 2024, she will represent Canada at the Venice Biennale. Partners: Meise Botanic Garden, AfricaMuseum

10.11.2023 > 10.03.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

L’art de rien

Elodie Antoine, Lipstick, 2015, courtesy Aeroplastics Gallery Brussels

CENTRALE for contemporary art
Place Sainte-Catherine 44
1000 Brussels
www.centrale.brussels
23.11.2023 > 17.03.2024

L’art de rien

The group exhibition L’art de rien brings together artists, mostly from Brussels, who share a talent for the smallest gesture and a predilection for humble materials: for aesthetic and poetic purposes, they reuse and divert poor materials or restore dignity to ordinary, everyday objects – those that are discarded, once consumed, in the household chaos of the modern world. This selection of guest artists is completed – with humour and poetry – by a choice of works drawn from the collection of François de Coninck, as well as from the formidable cabinet of contemporary curiosities of Galila Barzilaï Hollander, whose sensitive passion for incongruous objects is well known, with an emphasis on international artists.

@ CENTRALE | box - Sofhie Mavroudis - A bread in the wall
Sofhie Mavroudis questions the notion of transmission, particularly through language and traditions. Starting from an incomplete knowledge of her father’s language, she uses gesture as the initiator of a change of state and confers –an inherent symbolism on the various objects thus created. Starting with a book written in Greek, the artist erases the words she does not understand. She seeks a creative process that enables the transformation of this object, which has lost its primary role of transmitting history, into a process close to resilience.

@ CENTRALE | vitrine - Antoinette d’Ansembourg
Antoinette d'Ansembourg draws the timeless strangeness that emanates from her installations from the territory of the city, where new building sites blossom daily, ripping open buildings and excavating streets to expose the overhead or underground networks of cables that supply it with their fluids or electrical flows like a living being. In these areas, off-limits to the public and uncertain in their temporalities, she notes the connections between rubble and plants that have the capacity to grow in hostile environments. She is sensitive to these changes in the nature of beings and things, to their transgenic potential.

23.11.2023 > 17.03.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Kinshasa 1960s-2020s: Depara-Nzuzi Polo

Cloud Seven
Quai du commerce 7 1000 Brussels
www.cloudseven.be/exhibitions/
25.01.2024 > 25.02.2024

Kinshasa 1960s-2020s: Depara-Nzuzi Polo

Kinshasa in the 1960s: days and nights seen through the eyes of the maverick photographer Jean Depara, friend of musicians, pretty women, hoodlums, “Bills,” bodybuilders... The pride of being a free Congolese subject, celebrating independence. Kinshasa in the 2020s: three generations later, Alain Nzuzi Polo, 30 years old, the same age as Depara was then, looks at Kinshasa’s disrupted, saturated, chaotic landscape through his introverted universe. Two unique approaches to the same city, curated by Jean-Loup Pivin and Pascal Martin Saint Leon, founders of the iconic Revue Noire.

25.01.2024 > 25.02.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Christophe Gevers. Architecture of the detail

Design Museum Brussels
Place de Belgique 1 1020 Brussels
www.designmuseum.brussels
11.09.2023 > 10.03.2024

Christophe Gevers. Architecture of the detail

The monographic exhibition devoted to Christophe Gevers (Antwerp 1928-2007 Ohain) and presented at the Design Museum Brussels is intended as a walk through the archives, models and furniture created by the Belgian interior architect and designer. Because of his prolific activity between the 1960s and 1980s, Christophe Gevers’ material legacy is relatively rich. More than an exhibition of objects, the Design Museum Brussels will be hosting a reconstruction of his professional universe: a narrative ensemble composed of archives and objects, documents and testimonies. Gevers’ creative process will be revealed “without filters” thanks, amongst other things, to the archives of Thierry Belenger, currently kept at the museum, and to a selection from the collection of furniture, lamps, sculptures and toys of the publisher and collector André Vossen.

11.09.2023 > 10.03.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Shoshana Walfish

Jewish Museum of Belgium
Rue des Minimes 21 1000 Brussels
www.mjb-jmb.org
07.09.2023 > 18.02.2024

Shoshana Walfish

The paintings of Shoshana Walfish (°1988), a Canadian artist based in Brussels, focus on her research into the representation of the female body, in two parts. Rooted in the classical pictorial tradition, her works vary in scale and style, from sculptural figuration to figurative abstraction. Shoshana Walfish questions the idea of the woman as an object and objects as female bodies. Between Surrealism and absurdity, she questions the gaze, objectification and the narratives produced by history and the history of art. In a second series, she explores the lush aesthetic allusions associated with bodily organs, weaving together corporality, the natural world, science and society.

07.09.2023 > 18.02.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Erwin Blumenfeld. Photography. 1930-1950

Jewish Museum of Belgium Rue des Minimes 21
1000 Brussels
www.mjb-jmb.org
29.09.2023 > 04.02.2024

Erwin Blumenfeld. Photography. 1930-1950

Known for his exceptionally creative fashion photographs, Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) was the author of a polymorphous body of work combining Dadaist inspiration, political commitment and artistic experimentation. Featuring over a hundred photographs, the exhibition looks back at the life of this Berlin Jew, who was part of the cultural avant-garde in Amsterdam and then Paris, before being placed in various internment camps when the Second World War broke out. He managed to take refuge in New York at the last minute in 1941, where he enjoyed a successful career, marked by a free exploration of form and colour.

29.09.2023 > 04.02.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Belgian Art Nouveau. Van de Velde, Serrurier-Bovy, Hankar & Co

Maison Hannon © David Plas

Maison Hannon
Avenue de la Jonction 1
1060 Brussels
www.maisonhannon.be
01.06.2023 > 05.06.2024

Belgian Art Nouveau. Van de Velde, Serrurier-Bovy, Hankar & Co

Art nouveau. A style? More like a state of mind, and an insatiable faith in modernity. In 1900, whilst the Industrial Revolution was at its peak, Brussels was the field of experimentation for a subversive style. While Victor Horta addressed himself to a wealthy clientele, Paul Hankar, Henry van de Velde and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy worked together to invent a modern way of life that was simpler and less cluttered, with the aim of popularising it. Through this committed approach, they sought to be pioneers of change and to establish the foundations of a first modernity. For its first exhibition, the Maison Hannon presents Belgian Art Nouveau in all its diversity, through a wide range of art pieces from public and private collections, many of which have never been seen before. Curators: Werner Adriaenssens - Grégory Van Aelbrouck

01.06.2023 > 05.06.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s

Alexandra Exter, Three Female Figures (1909-1910), National Art Museum of Ukraine, inv. Ж-1769

Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium
Rue de la Régence 3
1000 Brussels
www.fine-arts-museum.be
19.10.2023 > 28.01.2024

In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s

The Modernist movement in Ukraine developed against a backdrop of collapsing empires, the First World War, the struggle for independence and the creation of Soviet Ukraine. Despite these profound upheavals, the first decades of the twentieth century saw bold artistic experimentations and a real blossoming of art, literature and theatre in Ukraine. Highlighting a range of artistic styles and diverse cultural identities, In the Eye of the Storm features over sixty works, most of which are on loan from the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU) and the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine to safeguard them during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The exhibition brings together works by artists such as Kazymyr Malevych, Alexandra Exter and El Lissitzky, as well as by lesser-known figures, including Oleksandr Bohomazov, Sarah Shor and Mykhailo Boichuk, all of whom have left an indelible mark on the country’s art and culture. Organised by the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, the Belvedere Museum, Vienna and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in partnership with the National Art Museum of Ukraine.

19.10.2023 > 28.01.2024

event website

BRÜSSEL

Jef Geys: What you see is not what you think you see

Jef Geys, Gleichheit, Broederlijkheid, Liberté, 1986. Courtesy of the artist. Photographer Lieven Herreman

WIELS - Contemporary Art Centre
Avenue Van Volxem 354
1190 Brussels
www.wiels.org
02.02.2024 > 19.05.2024

Jef Geys: What you see is not what you think you see

WIELS presents a broad overview of Jef Geys’ work, showcasing the artist’s incredible trajectory from the late 1950s to his passing in 2018. A pioneer in the intersection of popular, pop and counter-culture, he was driven by an emancipatory impulse. Geys harnessed the visual arts to break through patterns, schemas, and formulas of homogenising systems. He replaced them with more complex methods of encounter, scrutiny and representation, without ever calling on high-brow theories. In this ambitious survey exhibition, visitors revisit works and events in which conceptual art and sociological photography are invented within the artist’s exhibition projects and prolific, polymorph practice: his local newspaper, his school and teaching, a cluster of cafes and bars, ecological mappings, and formalist deconstructions and transformations. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication following his legendary 'work list'.

02.02.2024 > 19.05.2024

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BRÜSSEL

Oscar Murillo

Oscar Murillo, disrupted frequencies (Egypt, Nepal, China, Colombia, Senegal, Malaysia), 2013-2021. Courtesy of the artist

WIELS - Contemporary Art Centre
Avenue Van Volxem 354
1190 Brussels
www.wiels.org
02.02.2024 > 28.04.2024

Oscar Murillo

In the work of Oscar Murillo (b.1986), ideas and materials often evolve from one project to the next. His expansive practice allows for the inclusion of others in his creative process, often members of his extended family, but also the people he encounters on his travels. His philosophy of hospitality is interwoven with his interest in the formation of social groups and the division of labour. For this exhibition, the co-winner of the 2019 Turner Prize has created a new body of work, comprising paintings, installations and film.

02.02.2024 > 28.04.2024

event website

ANTWERPEN

James Barnor

Two friends dressed for a church celebration, Accra, 1970s © James Barnor / Courtesy of Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière

FoMu - FotoMuseum
Waalsekaai 47
2000 Antwerp
www.fomu.be
26.10.2023 > 10.03.2024

James Barnor

This autumn, FOMU presents the first major retrospective of Ghanaian-British photographer James Barnor (Ghana, 1929). This exhibition reveals both the versatility of his practice and his mastery of the medium. In the early 1950s, Barnor opened his first photography studio in bustling Accra. During the tumultuous months leading up to Ghanaian independence in 1957, he took to the streets and captured the historical events of the time. In 1959, Barnor left for London. There he was commissioned by the African lifestyle magazine Drum, for which he produced portraits and reports of young black women which adorned the covers. In London, Barnor was introduced to colour photography, which brought him to Antwerp in 1969. He spent several months in Mortsel where he attended workshops at the Gevaert Color School. With the knowledge he acquired there, he established the first colour laboratory in the young African country Ghana as a representative of Agfa-Gevaert. His work from the 1970s and 1980s paints a colourful picture of Ghana, a proud young Republic that believed in the future and modernity. James Barnor’s exhibition at FOMU highlights not only Barnor’s rich career, but also the cultural connections between Accra, London and Belgium.

26.10.2023 > 10.03.2024

event website

ANTWERPEN

Her Voice

Manon de Boer, For C.A. (Her Voice), 2020. Courtesy of Manon de Boer and Jan Mot, Brussels, Photo Philippe De Gobert

FoMu - FotoMuseum
Waalsekaai 47
2000 Antwerp
www.fomu.be
27.10.2023 > 10.03.2024

Her Voice

Chantal Akerman (Belgium, 1950-2015) remains just as potent an inspiration to artists as she ever was. For her work, Akerman drew on personal experiences and on her reflections about sex, family, trauma, intimacy and oppression. Her radically vulnerable approach was groundbreaking for the 1970s film and art worlds. It was seen as feminist – and fifty years later, its relevance has not diminished. Just last year, her feminist masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) was named the best film of all time by the British Film Institute. The group exhibition Her Voice - Echoes of Chantal Akerman presents photographic and video works by seven contemporary artists inspired by the work of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. Manon de Boer, Moyra Davey, Gabby Laurent, Frida Orupabo, Joanna Piotrowska, Collier Schorr and Carmen Winant explore what it means today to be a woman, artist, mother, daughter and lover. BOZAR and Cinematek (Brussels) will be hosting a retrospective in the spring of 2024.

27.10.2023 > 10.03.2024

event website

ANTWERPEN

Pre-Columbian art. Collection Paul & Dora Janssen-Arts

MAS - Museum Aan de Stroom
Hanzestedeplaats 1
2000 Antwerp
www.mas.be
01.09.2023 >

Pre-Columbian art. Collection Paul & Dora Janssen-Arts

In the highest museum gallery in the MAS, a world-famous collection – which was gathered by Dora Janssen-Arts over many years – tells us about the extraordinary relationship between man and the world of gods, ancestors and spirits in America before the conquest by the Europeans. The Paul & Dora Janssen-Arts Collection consists of more than 400 pre-Columbian objects in gold, jade, stone, textiles and shell. The objects come from more than 50 different cultures, from Alaska to Chile, and bear witness to the craftmanship and the sense of aesthetics of their creators in America before 1500. There were many differences between the inhabitants of the American continent, but their vision of the world around them was strikingly similar. Human sacrifice was considered essential in order to ensure continuity between life and death. Fertility rituals across the continent assumed various forms but was always central in the pre-Hispanic environment. Precious grave gifts, often made from gold, reflected the importance of life after death, shared by all the communities represented here, from Alaska to Chile.

01.09.2023 >

event website

ANTWERPEN

Open Air Sculpture Park

Richard Deacon, Never Mind, 1993-2017, Copyright of the artist, Photo Ans Brys

Middelheim Museum - Open Air Sculpture Park
Middelheimlaan 61
2020 Antwerp
www.middelheimmuseum.be
01.09.2023 >

Open Air Sculpture Park

The Middelheim Museum is a unique institution where the amazing interplay between art and nature results in exceptional experiences. The art park showcases modern and contemporary sculptures amidst a green park setting. Works by artists such as Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Rik Wouters, Isa Genzken, Chris Burden, Ana Mendieta, Jean Katambayi, Barbara Hepworth, Bruce Nauman, Germaine Richier, Pascale Marthine Tayou provide a unique overview of more than a century of visual arts.

01.09.2023 >

event website

ANTWERPEN

ECHO. Wrapped in Memory

Louise Bourgeois, Dawn, 2006, fabric, Photo Christopher Burke © Louise Bourgeois Trust / Sabam 2023, Belgium

MoMu - Fashion Museum
Nationalestraat 28
2000 Antwerp
www.momu.be
14.10.2023 > 25.02.2024

ECHO. Wrapped in Memory

ECHO reflects on the intimate connection between clothing and memory from the perspective of three artists whose work shares a tactile and emotional intensity: artist Louise Bourgeois, designer Simone Rocha and choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The exhibition is about the memories of babyhood, childhood and motherhood, ageing and nostalgia, handmaking and repair, and both the physical and emotional memories of clothing.

14.10.2023 > 25.02.2024

event website

ANTWERPEN

Conversations

Museum Plantin-Moretus
Vrijdagmarkt 22
2000 Antwerp
www.museumplantinmoretus.be
10.11.2023 > 03.03.2024

Conversations

For this exhibition, contemporary artists will enter into dialogue with the collection of the Museum Mayer van den Bergh. Amongst the centuries-old paintings, the modest sculptures and the extravagant altarpieces will enrich modern artworks during the museum presentation. Fifteen artists have been inspired by Mad Meg by Pieter Bruegel, the portraits by Cornelis De Vos and Alessandro Allori, still-lifes by Antwerp masters like Daniël Seghers, works by Jacob Jordaens, Joachim Patinir, Gerard de Lairesse, and other masterpieces. The result is a surprising dialogue between historical and contemporary masters, presented in the atmospheric interior of Museum Mayer van den Bergh – an intriguing blend of old and new. New and existing work by Bram Demunter, Marcel Dzama, Adrian Ghenie, Kati Heck, Leiko Ikemura, Edward Lipski, Jonathan Meese, Ryan Mosley, Inès van den Kieboom, Muller Van Severen, Tobias Pils, Ben Sledsens, Dennis Tyfus, Rinus Van de Velde, Tal R. In collaboration with Tim Van Laere Gallery.

10.11.2023 > 03.03.2024

event website

ANTWERPEN

From scribble to cartoon: Drawings from Bruegel to Rubens

Museum Plantin-Moretus
Vrijdagmarkt 22
2000 Antwerp
www.museumplantinmoretus.be
17.11.2023 > 18.02.2024

From scribble to cartoon: Drawings from Bruegel to Rubens

Discover who, why and how people drew in the Low Countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at this intriguing exhibition. Featuring no fewer than 85 of the most beautiful Old Master drawings, the exhibition is a one-time opportunity to discover work by artists such as Frans Floris, Pieter Bruegel, Anthony Van Dyck and Jacques Jordaens, alongside those by lesser-known draughtsmen, including Jan van Stinemolen, Hans Collaert, Pieter van Lint, Godfried Maes and Jan Erasmus Quellinus. Masterpieces from the museum’s own collection form the basis of the exhibition, along with pieces on loan from other public and private collections. Included are Rubens’ sketchbook from when he was 12 years old, Antoon van den Wijngaerde’s 10-metre long Panorama of Zeeland and the extremely rare Italy sketchbooks by the sculptor Pieter Verbruggen.

17.11.2023 > 18.02.2024

event website

ANTWERPEN

Passion! 16th- and 17th-century masterpieces from private collections

Snijders&Rockox House
Keizerstraat 10-12
2000 Antwerp
www.snijdersrockoxhuis.be
15.11.2023 > 31.03.2024

Passion! 16th- and 17th-century masterpieces from private collections

Mayor Rockox loved beauty and culture. When he died in 1640, he left behind a magnificent collection of then-contemporary paintings that he had collected with passion. He had en eye for quality and wanted to use it to strengthen the aura of his personality. In his wake, today, frantic collectors are still active on the art market in search of discoveries from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Each motive for collecting is personal, but the common denominator is passion. We bring to the Snijders&Rockox House a selection of some private collectors who prefer to remain anonymous but are eager to share their gems with us. From Ambrose Benson, to Jordaens and Quellinus, to Teniers!

15.11.2023 > 31.03.2024

event website

CHARLEROI

Bertrand Meunier. Erased

Bertrand Meunier, Pékin, mars 2007 © Bertrand Meunier, Tendance Floue

The Photography Museum
Avenue Paul Pastur 11
6032 Charleroi
www.museephoto.be
30.09.2023 > 28.01.2024

Bertrand Meunier. Erased

Erased proposes in 80 silver prints, videos, installations and press clippings, a new take on the vast body of work produced by Meunier in China from 1999 to 2019. During his regular trips to China, Bertrand Meunier was able to capture the transformations the country has undergone in the past twenty years, from joining the World Trade Organisation [2001] to the protests in Hong-Kong in 2019-2020, before the COVID pandemic closed the country off to foreigners. Also on display > Exhibition by Virginie Nguyen Hoang. La vie en guerre.

30.09.2023 > 28.01.2024

event website

CHARLEROI

Peter Knapp. Mon Temps

Peter Knapp, On the road to Thoiry, 1970, publié dans Stern pour André Courrèges © Peter Knapp

The Photography Museum
Avenue Paul Pastur 11
6032 Charleroi
www.museephoto.be
03.02.2024 > 26.05.2024

Peter Knapp. Mon Temps

From the 3rd of February, the exhibition Mon Temps will honour Peter Knapp's work as a fashion photographer and artistic director, notably of Elle magazine. The exhibition, unique in Belgium, was conceived by the Swiss Foundation for Photography (Winterthur) on the basis of a generous donation by Peter Knapp. It pays tribute to the work of the Swiss designer reviving the atmosphere of an era (1965-1980) as well as the changes in society it has experienced. Also on display > Exhibition by Thomas Chable.

03.02.2024 > 26.05.2024

event website

GENT

Restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece

Sint-Baafskathedraal © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw, foto KIK-IRPA, Brussels

MSK - Museum of Fine Arts
Fernand Scribedreef 1
9000 Ghent
www.mskgent.be
02.05.2023 > 01.03.2026

Restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece

From 2023, seven panels of The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers (more commonly known as the Ghent Altarpiece) will be restored in the heart of the MSK. Audiences could already follow the campaign from 2012 to 2019, and now the remaining panels are coming to the museum for the final restoration phase. During the week, you can see the restorers of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK) live at work, in the studio behind glass.

02.05.2023 > 01.03.2026

event website

GENT

Among Friends

Léon Spilliaert, Nocturnal Beach View, 1905, MSK Ghent

MSK - Museum of Fine Arts
Fernand Scribedreef 1
9000 Ghent
www.mskgent.be
25.11.2023 > 28.04.2024

Among Friends

In the winter of 2023-2024, MSK Ghent will be looking back and looking forward. The Among Friends exhibition will explore the museum’s recent and more distant past, with a focus on the people who have donated gifts and legacies of antique and modern art. The exhibition includes works by Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Simon Bening, Colijn de Coter, Cornelis de Heem, Raoul De Keyser, James Ensor, Henri Evenepoel, Fernand Khnopff, Constantin Meunier, George Minne, László Moholy-Nagy, Auguste Rodin, Félicien Rops, Medardo Rosso, Peter Paul Rubens, Roelant Savery, Frans Snijders, Léon Spilliaert, Frits Van den Berghe, Théo Van Rysselberghe and many other artists.

25.11.2023 > 28.04.2024

event website

GENT

Jan Van Imschoot. The End Is Never Near

S.M.A.K. – Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art / Jan Hoetplein 2
9000 Ghent
www.smak.be
07.10.2023 > 03.03.2024

Jan Van Imschoot. The End Is Never Near

The exhibition The End Is Never Near in S.M.A.K. presents the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to the work of the Belgian artist Jan Van Imschoot. The exhibition traces a rough chronological trajectory that spans more than 30 years and includes over 80 of his paintings. Van Imschoot is internationally known for his intimate, enigmatic works from the early 1990s and his recent large-scale, historically inspired tableaux. Van Imschoot belongs to a generation of artists who laid the foundations for the critical reappraisal of figurative painting during the 1990s. Among his peers, Van Imschoot’s work occupies a unique place due to the profound art-historical awareness with which he paints. He approaches contemporary subjects such as gender, identity, war and peace, drawing inspiration from sources such as seventeenth-century Dutch painting, the work of Tintoretto, Caravaggio and especially that of Edouard Manet, the archetypal painter of modern life. Besides the classical history of Western painting, film and literature also serve as important references in Van Imschoot’s creative universe. By also making them a focal point, the exhibition aims to bring Jan Van Imschoot’s world to life within the walls of S.M.A.K. “And that world, as the exhibition title suggests, is far from ending.”

07.10.2023 > 03.03.2024

event website

GENT

Karlo Kacharava. Sentimental Traveller

Karlo Kacharava, We were all together in Barcelona, 1992, Courtesy the Estate of Karlo Kacharava, Tbilisi, and Modern Art, London

S.M.A.K. – Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art / Jan Hoetplein 2
9000 Ghent
www.smak.be
02.12.2023 > 14.04.2024

Karlo Kacharava. Sentimental Traveller

In the context of Europalia Georgia, S.M.A.K. is organising the first solo museum exhibition of the Georgian artist Karlo Kacharava (1964-1994) outside Georgia. Kacharava’s short life ultimately left an enduring mark on Georgia, inspiring a whole new generation of local artists amidst a vibrant cultural scene. Artist Karlo Kacharava was born when his native Georgia was part of the Soviet Union and died in the early years of its independence. Karlo Kacharava provided an artistic response, emphasising cultural connections rather than rigid divides - a philosophy that resonates far beyond Georgia. Karlo Kacharava produced numerous paintings, works on paper and illustrated diaries. Although he was only 30 years old when he died, Kacharava also left behind volumes of poetry, art criticism and cultural commentary, not to mention the legacy of a unique style that helped usher in a new wave of Georgian avant-garde expression. Within the framework of a public programme, S.M.A.K. will also be inviting a younger generation of artists from Georgia and its diasporas to enter into dialogue with his work. In close collaboration with the Estate of Karlo Kacharava and Irena Popiashvili. With the support of Modern Art, London.

02.12.2023 > 14.04.2024

event website

HASSELT

This Is Us

Z33 - House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture
Bonnefantenstraat 1 / 3500 Hasselt
www.z33.be
01.10.2023 > 18.02.2024

This Is Us

In the exhibition This Is Us, selected works from the four largest Flemish museums for contemporary art will be presented together for the very first time. Curator Fabian Flückiger chose artworks from the contemporary collections of M HKA, S.M.A.K., Mu.ZEE and M Leuven. With the artistic learning environment as his inspiration, he reflected on what these collections represent. What do they say about modern society, and what can this teach visitors? The exhibition is divided into three chapters: The Art Institution, Living Spaces, and Telling Stories, which contain works by some fifty artists, more than half of whom live and work in Belgium. They also include seven new works, created specifically for the exhibition. This Is Us is a unique collaboration between the leading Flemish museums of contemporary art and Z33.

Also on view >
Classroom / 01 Oct 2023 > 18 Feb 2024
Classroom is an architectural exhibition created in a European collaboration with Garagem Sul (Portugal) and arc en rêve centre d’architecture (Bordeaux), which reflects on the impact of the Covid pandemic on the learning environment of young people. Pupils were no longer taught in a classroom but followed online education. Has this changed our view of the classroom space?

Jef Geys makes school / 01 Oct 2023 > 04 Feb 2024
The exhibition Jef Geys makes school focuses on the work made by the Belgian artist Jef Geys (1934-2018) from 1963 to 1989, when he was a teacher at the State Secondary School in Balen. As a teacher, Jef Geys, in his very own way, knew how to fill aesthetics lessons with worldly insights. He challenged his pupils in an open manner about the self-evidence of prevailing opinions and changing world views, and also about the advertising techniques in which he himself had been trained.

01.10.2023 > 18.02.2024

event website

HORNU

Home Made. Create, Produce, Live.

Benjamin Edgar, Tired, but quite optimistic

CID - Innovation and design center
Site du Grand-Hornu / Rue Sainte-Louise 82 7301 Hornu
www.cid-grand-hornu.be
15.10.2023 > 11.02.2024

Home Made. Create, Produce, Live.

In the era of open-source technology, remote working and Covid-19 lockdowns, what links are being forged between the domestic space, work and objects? Will future production be marked by extreme individualism (making for oneself) or a form of collectivisation (contributing to a network)? How are cities and regions preparing to manage this new network of creators, small producers and engaged users? A selection of international designers and collective projects are presented alongside a collection of experiences, witness accounts and objects to provide a better understanding of the creativity at play in these new working environments.

15.10.2023 > 11.02.2024

event website

HORNU

Lionel Estève. Les Saisons

MACS - Museum of contemporary art
Site du Grand-Hornu / Rue Sainte-Louise 82 7301 Hornu
www.mac-s.be
12.11.2023 > 17.03.2024

Lionel Estève. Les Saisons

Lionel Estève’s sculptures and installations are characterised by a captivating fragility. The delicate visions are the result of meticulous research, based on various materials that are generally inspired by motifs found in the natural world or the sensory experience of it. For his exhibition at the MACS, the artist has devised a twofold sensorial landscape, shifting between states of ‘drought’ and ‘dampness’.

12.11.2023 > 17.03.2024

event website

HORNU

Jochen Lempert. Honeyguides and Milk Teeth

MACS - Museum of contemporary art
Site du Grand-Hornu / Rue Sainte-Louise 82 7301 Hornu
www.mac-s.be
12.11.2023 > 17.03.2024

Jochen Lempert. Honeyguides and Milk Teeth

The MACS is presenting the first exhibition in Belgium by the German photographer, Jochen Lempert. After studying biology and specialising in dragonflies, Lempert embarked on his artistic career at the age of 31. His scientific background gave him an appetite for observing nature, which he explores in delicate, poetic black-and-white images. At the MACS, the selected works and their arrangement in the space have been envisaged by the artist as a single installation, presenting subtle, visual accounts consisting of formal or conceptual analogies, in which the animal and plant worlds mingle.

12.11.2023 > 17.03.2024

event website

LA LOUVIÈRE

Mentors. Ceramists and teachers in Belgium

Keramis – Ceramics Center
Place des Fours-Bouteilles 1
7100 La Louvière
www.keramis.be
18.11.2023 > 18.02.2024

Mentors. Ceramists and teachers in Belgium

This exhibition brings together almost 70 ceramists at two cultural sites: Keramis - Center for Ceramics in La Louvière, where the 'pioneers' of the last century are exhibited, and BeCraft in the former abattoir in Mons, which brings together contemporary ceramists. The exhibition showcases artists who not only have / have had a ceramic practice, but have also participated / are participating in the transmission of its knowledge and know-how within an educational setting.

18.11.2023 > 18.02.2024

event website

LA LOUVIÈRE

Nos géantes

Françoise Pétrovitch, Se coiffer, lithography, Collection CGII

The Centre for Engravings and Prints (CGII)
Rue des Amours 10
7100 La Louvière
www.centredelagravure.be
19.01.2024 > 02.06.2024

Nos géantes

Le Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image imprimée presents a group show featuring mainly very large format works from the collections. In the world of printmaking, a piece measuring more than one metre is usually considered a large-format piece. Over the years, immense machines have enabled the production of sometimes monumental pieces. This exhibition highlights more than twenty of them. Paradoxically, at the entrance to the exhibition, visitors come face to face with a wall featuring a vast array of works in fairly moderate formats. They are the result of a survey carried out by the CGII team to find out which would be their 'Giant' work, in the most intimate sense of the word. A work that moves them or with which they have a special relationship.

19.01.2024 > 02.06.2024

event website

LÜTTICH

Bill Viola. Sculptor of Time

La Boverie
Parc de la Boverie
4020 Liege
www.laboverie.com
21.10.2023 > 28.04.2024

Bill Viola. Sculptor of Time

The Musée de La Boverie (Liège) is devoting a monographic exhibition to the American
artist Bill Viola. Bill Viola, a major figure in contemporary art, is considered to be one of the fathers of video art. Bill Viola. Sculptor of Time, presented by Tempora and the Bill Viola Studio, is the first Belgian exhibition of international scope celebrating the work of this unrivalled video artist. Bill Viola's technically dazzling works are both grand and intimate, complex and surprisingly accessible, spectacular and deeply human. His installations draw on multiple sources of inspiration, rooted in Western and Eastern artistic traditions and diverse spiritual philosophies: Buddhist, Sufi and Christian. All of them are permeated by a humanism of a universal nature.

21.10.2023 > 28.04.2024

event website

OSTENDE

Rose, Rose, Rose, à mes yeux! James Ensor and Still Life in Belgium 1830-1930

Mu.ZEE
Romestraat 11
8400 Ostend
www.muzee.be
16.12.2023 > 14.04.2024

Rose, Rose, Rose, à mes yeux! James Ensor and Still Life in Belgium 1830-1930

In Flanders, 2024 will be dedicated to James Ensor. It will be 75 years since the great Ostend master died. He will be commemorated in Ostend, the city where Ensor was born and spent his entire life. Rose, Rose, Rose, à mes yeux! James Ensor and Still Life in Belgium 1830-1930 is the first exhibition ever devoted entirely to Ensor’s still lifes. The exhibition follows the evolution at the heart of Ensor’s body of work and within Belgium’s history of still life. A unique journey through the still lifes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

16.12.2023 > 14.04.2024

event website

SENEFFE

Seneffe at the time of the Philippsons

Domaine du Château de Seneffe / Silver Museum of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles
Rue Lucien Plasman 7-9 / 7180 Seneffe
www.chateaudeseneffe.be
10.09.2023 > 31.12.2024

Seneffe at the time of the Philippsons

Follow the life of the Philippson family in their ‘country house’ in Seneffe (1909-1952). Discover the twentieth-century innovations introduced into both the house and the park during the heritage restoration. Photos from the period, layout plans, archive documents and decorative art elements are put into perspective to further our understanding of the evolution of the eighteenth-century castle with the innovation of the twentieth century under the impetus of a renowned family.

Also on view
Think Nature / 07 Oct 2023 > 01 Sep 2024
The artist Mr Plant is coming to the Seneffe’s Castle for a poetic, unusual and contemporary exhibition. His plant-based, offbeat installations combine the dramatisation of objects from the museum's collections with the enhancement of the interior decor of the eighteenth-century neoclassical castle. His view of nature and current social concerns make a link with the ideas advocated by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. Visitors will be able to take this unusual walk, accompanied by a quirky ‘character’, and to have their photo taken. Nature will speak to them.

10.09.2023 > 31.12.2024

event website

AUSSTELLUNGEN