Belgium

Troubled Brussels fine arts museums pin hopes on new director

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Brussels was hit by scandal last year when its longstanding director stood down following allegations of inappropriate behaviour and bad management

‘Shining a light on the blind spots’: new book seeks to provide clearer picture of Mau Mau uprising

Max Pinckers worked together with Kenyan war veterans to bring records of 1950s colonial violence to the fore

James Ensor: series of anniversary shows to reveal ‘the man behind the mask’

Belgium commemorates 75 years since the artist's death with a year-long season of exhibitions and events, often highlighting the lesser known aspects of his work

Obituariesfeature

Remembering Myriam Ullens, art collector, and philanthropist, who launched the first contemporary art museum in China

Belgian entrepreneur in fashion, food and art, co-founded the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, in Beijing, with her husband, Guy Ullens

Belgian museum looks unchanged after €100m restoration—but an entirely new building has been inserted within

Home to works by Old Masters including Peter Paul Rubens and Jan van Eyck, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp reopens after 11-year makeover

#metoonews

Artist Jan Fabre given 18-month suspended sentence for bullying and violence against five women—and will pay €1 symbolic compensation

Belgian court also charged the dance choreographer and director with indecent assault on one of the individuals

Belgian pavilion: Francis Alÿs explores the world through child’s play

Artist’s film for the Biennale is part of his 20-year examination of human behaviour through children’s games

Belgian cuts to art crime policing weaken ‘intelligence gathering’

Decision follows years of uncertainty around dwindling enforcement funding

Belgium plans to hand back colonial loot to DR Congo

New law will set up expert commission to sift through thousands of objects at the Royal Museum for Central Africa

Brussels doctors prescribe museum visits to treat Covid-19 stress

Research “has proven that art can be beneficial for health, both mental and physical,” the city’s head of culture tells a Belgian newspaper

Centre Pompidou in Paris names new president as Brussels branch backtracks over ‘sexist’ appointment

The Kanal-Centre Pompidou in Belgium has responded to outcry over decision to make Bernard Blistène a co-director alongside Kasia Redzisz

Hoard of plundered ancient art—discovered by police in a Belgian dealer's home—is returned to Italy

The almost 800 rare archaeological artefacts are now on show at the Castello Svevo in Bari

Belgian experts frustrated at 'lack of initiative from museums and government' call for restitution of colonial-era acquisitions

New report provides guidelines for the return of artefacts to Africa, where Belgium controlled territory that was 80 times its size

Art marketinterview

'You need to predict what will be important in tomorrow’s world': Xavier Hufkens on opening another gallery during a pandemic

The art dealer is opening a third space in Brussels today with an exhibition of new works by Sterling Ruby

Unknown masterpiece? Picture 'likely' based on lost Vermeer to be unveiled in Antwerp

A Young Woman with a Wine Glass and a Musician playing a Tenor Recorder could be a copy of a work by the great Dutch painter

Museums in Belgium and Italy to reopen mid-May under phased lifting of lockdown

Belgian museum director says his institution is “ready to serve as a test room”

Léon Spilliaert’s doom and gloom to light up the Royal Academy of Arts

The first major UK show will include 80 works by the little-known Belgian artist who has always "escaped easy categorisation"

In Pictures: the making of Europe’s largest public sculpture

Bernar Venet’s vast steel arc has been installed on a Belgian motorway

Art fairspreview

What am I actually buying? Performance art-only fair in Brussels faces challenge of materiality

A Performance Affair introduces new protocol to specify what is on offer and its secondary market development

Europe's largest public sculpture to be unveiled on Belgian motorway in October

The 60m roadside steel sculpture by French artist Bernar Venet was rejected by the French government 35 years ago

Former politician questions authenticity of Khnopff sculpture

Marie-Paule Quix says work is by Giorgio Ceragioli not the symbolist Belgian painter

What René Magritte did when Surrealism was trumped by ‘Nazi idiots’

Exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art explores Belgium artist's lesser-known late period

In Bruges: sea plastic, Chinese crabs and a Spanish pool take centre stage at triennial

Commissions for the second edition of the Bruges Triennial are closely linked with the city’s famous canals

Collectorsarchive

Belgium’s contemporary art collectors

The contemporary art collectors of Belgium

Why paintings succeed where words fail: Interview with Luc Tymans

The Belgian artist talked to us about the messages art can convey on the eve of exhibitions in Europe, Russia and the United States

Ghentarchive

A new quadrennial in Ghent, US-curated this time

Little known fact: the Flemish part of Belgium has one of the highest concentrations of contemporary art collectors and enthusiasts in the world

Luc Tymans: on pigeon power

Belgium's representative at this year's Venice Biennale explains why pigeons are not symbols of peace, how he depicts violence without actually showing it and why he returned to painting