SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
After delighting audiences in Paris, London and New York, the Small is Beautiful: Miniature Art Exhibition has made its Brussels debut at the Grand Place.
This collection of miniature art features over one hundred works on a tiny scale, including precision-perfect replicas of iconic paintings, intricate scenes and sets with countless minute details and other Lilliputian creations.
The longer one looks at each work, produced by around twenty international artists, the more is discovered. Test the sharpness of your eye and get lost in the miniscule worlds evoked by the pieces, whose styles run the gamut from abstract and surreal to gritty hyperrealism.
9pm, Sunday from 11am to 8pm
Grand Place 5, 1000 Brussels
€12.80 admission adults, free for children under four
PLAISIRS D’HIVER
The Brussels Christmas Market make its return this year with the 2023 Plaisirs d'Hiver. This 23rd edition of the winter markets is even grander than its predecessors with an extension on Place De Brouckère, Place de la Monnaie and the Grand-Place until January 7, 2024, bringing the holiday magic into the new year.
The capital of Europe will be awash in the glow of holiday light displays and residents and visitors from abroad alike will revel in the sounds and scents of this special winter season.
Place De Brouckère, Place de la Monnaie and Grand-Place
November 24 until January 7, 2024
Open daily from noon till 10pm
Various locations in Brussels
Free entry
JOSEF HOFFMANN - FALLING FOR BEAUTY
When Austrian architect Josef Hoffman was commissioned in 1905 to design the house of banker Adolphe Stoclet on the Avenue de Tervuren, he oversaw everything about the building, including the dresses and furniture.
The resulting Stoclet Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is considered a modernist masterpiece, and was made in the Vienna Secessionist style, which emerged between Art Nouveau and Art Deco.
Although it has remained closed to the public, the Art and History Museum in the Cinquantenaire is showcasing Hoffman’s artistry from his long career, including architectural designs and items like chairs, jewellery and tea sets.
Tuesday to Friday from 9:30am to 5pm; Saturday and Sunday from10am to 5pm
Cinquantenaire Park 10, 1000 Brussels
€18 admission adults; €12 for over 65s; €6 for students; free for under 18s
The quintessential British sports car brand is given the star treatment in a special exhibition at Autoworld in honour of MG’s 100th anniversary.
Considered the jewel in the British sports car crown – and the cornerstone on which the reputation of all British sports cars would be founded – MG was created singlehandedly in 1930 by Cecil Kimber, who intended for it to be the sporting arm of Morris (then the British Motor Company or BMC) where he served as sales manager.
A commercial success out the gate, MG sales boomed even further after World War II when returning US troops imported the sports car hype.
Until December 3, 2023
Weekdays from 10am to 5pm and till 6pm on weekends
Parc du Cinquantenaire 11, 1000 Brussels
€15 admission for adults, €7 for children aged 6-12
IN THE EYE OF THE STORM: MODERNISM IN UKRAINE
Ukraine’s history as a country in upheaval predates the events making headlines today, yet in spite of – or perhaps, partly, because of – a national backdrop of collapsing empires, world wars, the struggle for independence and the creation of Soviet Ukraine – the country has consistently produced bold and authentic artistic experimentations.
Art, literature and theatre have flowered in Ukraine and this exhibition from Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium brings the modernist movement that took place between 1900 and 1930 into the spotlight.
It features over 60 works that highlight a range of artistic styles and diverse cultural identities, with most of the pieces coming to Brussels on loan from the National Art Museum of Ukraine (NAMU) and the Museum of Theatre, Music and Cinema of Ukraine in order to safeguard them during the ongoing Russian invasion.
The touring exhibition is presented with support from Museums for Ukraine, an initiative founded to provide much-needed assistance to museums, curators, and artists in the war zone. Among those whose works are presented in the exhibition are the established and well-known artists such as Kazymyr Malevych, Alexandra Exter and El Lissitzky.
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium
Until January 28, 2024
Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm, Weekends 11am to 6pm
Rue de la Régence 3, 1000 Brussels
€10 admission for adults, €8 for seniors, student discounts available
HOPELESSNESS
Art has so often been a symbol of hope in times of darkness, proof of humanity’s need and capacity to create and express despite war, terror and reigning chaos. But what happens when even the artists have forsaken a belief in a brighter future? David Crunelle “doesn’t believe in it anymore,” he says.
“In a world that’s on a downward spiral and has no intention of deviating from its trajectory, nothing really matters anymore.” Crunelle recently left Brussel to settle permanently in Finland, but has spent the last few months working on a series themed around what he considers both a state of mind and a topic close to his own heart: Hopelessness.
The omnipresent symbolism in this collection is both dark and dissonant. An “avid ragpicker of past splendours”, Crunelle presents these as derisory amulets, pressed into each viewer’s palm to be taken to the grave. With humanity done for good, he says, we might as well go out with a bang.
Yet despite the exhibition’s title, Crunelle can’t help but note – while it may be too much to hope that such amulets will bear witness to what we once were, to gaze upon them may make us suffer a little less. And that, the artist indicates, is already something.
Until December 23, 2023
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from noon till 6pm and Saturday from 2pm to 6pm
Rue Paul Lauters 36, 1050 Brussels
Free entry
CONTRASTES ABSTRAITS
A showcase of the works of Belgian sculptor Johan Baudart (born in 1961) and German artist Jacques Nestlé. Baudart, 62, who works in metal, stone and wood, set up his own foundry in the late 1980s to create abstract sculptures.
He was a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mons, on moulding and foundry techniques.
Nestlé, who died in 1991, aged 84, first made his name in the 1930s as an avant-garde artist in Berlin opposed to the Nazis but was eventually forced to flee to Paris, where he continued to develop geometric abstraction art.
Until December 15, 2023
Tuesday to Saturday from 10.30am to 6.30pm
15 Rue de l'Hôpital, 1000 Brussels
Free entry
DIERIC BOUTS, CREATOR OF IMAGES
Discover an entirely unexpected perspective on a classic Flemish Master in a new extensive overview exhibition on Dieric Bouts at the Museum Leuven (M). Never before have so many of Bouts’ works been brought together beneath the same roof in his hometown.
Bouts spent most of his life in Leuven, which is also where he painted his most famous scenic panels, iconic portraits and breathtaking landscapes. Considered one of the most important Flemish Masters to ever live, he was given the honorary title of Leuven’s official painter in 1472.
But if there are any doubts that works now five centuries old have any bearing on today’s visual culture, M’s exhibition lays them to rest with a radical confrontation: the concept of this exhibition on the renowned Renaissance artist forbids one to see him as such.
Bouts was no romantic genius or brilliant inventor, the collection asserts. Rather, he was an image-maker performing an expected function, no different than today’s sports photographers, filmmakers and game developers, whose works M places side-by-side with those of the revered and celebrated master.
Until January 14, 2023
Open daily from 11am till 6pm and on Thursdays till 10pm
Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 28, 3000 Leuven
€12 admission for adults, €5 for youths aged 19 to 25
CYRANO DE BERGERAC
Often referred to as the pinnacle of Romantic theatre, Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac comes to life at the Théâtre Royal de Toone in a way few have seen before: with puppets.
Brussels’ puppet theatre is performing the fictionalised tale of Cyrano de Bergerac’s life as a brash nobleman serving as a soldier in the French army in its original French language but transposed into Brussels verse, the result of a collaboration between Toone and Barès, the author of Brussels fables and stories published in 1944 to immense success under the title Flooskes.
A review from the play’s first performance in L'Ilot Sacré described it as a “peaceful duel between a born storyteller and a nose that doesn't take any crap!”
Until December 2, 2023
Performances on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30pm, additional showing on Saturdays at 4pm
Rue du Marché aux Herbes 66, 1000 Bruxelles
€15 admission for adults, €10 for children, students and senior citizens
POWER
This exhibition in the capital of Europe illuminates the connection between energy and politics, challenging visitors to consider the myriad of ways in which infrastructure relates to life across political institutions, citizen participation, geopolitics, climate justice, architecture, landscape design and engineering.
The energetic transformation, from oil and gas pipelines to microchips and wind turbines to recycling hubs, has only accelerated since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. CIVA’s exhibition creates a space for contemplation amid the fast-changing landscape, a place where one can undertake a genuine introspection with answers to the practical readily at hand.
With household energy bills soaring to new heights, energy – both its history and its future – cannot afford to remain obtuse to ordinary citizens. Power hopes to shed a light on its complexities that can also serve as a guiding beacon through the geopolitical landscape.
Until February 25, 2024
Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30am to 6pm
Rue de l’Ermitage 55, 1050 Brussels
€10 admission, €5 seniors and young adults, free for children under the age of 18
RARE & INDISPENSABLE
Works of art, manuscripts and artefacts by Michelangelo, Magritte, Francis Bacon, Ensor, Moore and Rubens are on display in this exhibition of items from the Flemish Masterpiece List.
Gems from 35 museums, as well as churches, libraries and private collectors, are temporarily loaned out for the exhibition, some being shown to the public for the first time.
The exibitiion includes a 13,000-year-old engraved scroll stone from Museum De Kolonie, the oldest object in Flanders decorated by a human being.
Until February 25, 2024
Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30am to 6pm
Hanzenstedenplaats 1, 2000 Antwerp
€10 admission, €5 seniors and young adults, free for children under the age of 18
CITY AT WAR
The fourth floor of MAS is now given over to an exhibition on how the Second World War touched Antwerp.
A city with a relatively high proportion of Jews, it was particularly hard hit: Nazi terror, persecution of Jews and military violence are estimated to have killed 25 000 people.
The exhibition looks at how this happened, what it meant to live in an occupied city, and the choices people made: flee, obey, collaborate, or resist?
New permanent exhibition
Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30am to 6pm
Hanzenstedenplaats 1, 2000 Antwerp
€10 admission, €5 seniors and young adults, free for children under the age of 18
OSTEND COMPANY: 300 YEARS
This year marks the 300th anniversary of the creation of the General East India Company, better known as the Ostend Company.
Traders from Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent raised funds and bought dozens of ships that sailed from Ostend to India and China.
Long seen as a mere footnote in our history – it was defunct by 1731 – the Ostend Company was nonetheless a pioneering endeavour that at one time accounted for over half of the tea on the European market.
Until May 15, 2024
Open all weekdays except Tuesday from 10am to 12pm and from 1:30pm to 6pm
Langestraat 69, 8400 Ostend
€5 admission, €3 seniors and students, free under 19s
