{"id":23109,"date":"2026-02-24T13:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/23109\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:41:17","slug":"brussels-art-museum-kanal-centre-pompidou-announces-opening-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/23109\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels\u2019 Art Museum Kanal-Centre Pompidou Announces Opening Programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels\u2019 first museum of modern and contemporary art, Kanal-Centre Pompidou<\/a>, has announced its inaugural season programme. The \u20ac230m redevelopment project, referred to as Europe\u2019s largest museum development, is housed in the transformed 40,000 sqm former Citro\u00ebn factory and is due to open to the public in Brussels on 28th November 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" Drone image of Kanal. Image credit: Atelier Kanal<\/p>\n

Kanal will feature 5 floors of art gallery spaces, dedicated spaces for architectural programmes, performance, a film screening auditorium, workshops, community spaces, cafes, a rooftop restaurant\/bar, an in-house bakery, and open spaces free to everyone all day. The transformation of the Citro\u00ebn factory to create Kanal has been carried out by international architect groups, including EM2N<\/a> (Zurich), noAarchitecten<\/a> (Brussels) and Sergison Bates architects <\/a>(London), working together under one name: Atelier Kanal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kanal\u2019s artistic director Kasia Redzisz emphasised that creativity was not missing in the city, but that there was an \u201cinstitutional absence\u201d and that \u201cKanal is founded in response to this condition \u2014 not as a corrective, but as a proposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\" Rendering of the interior street in Kanal. Image credit: Atelier Kanal \u00a9 Secchi Smith<\/p>\n

Part of the opening programme is A truly immense journey, a major exhibition featuring more than 350 works drawn from the collection of the Centre Pompidou<\/a>, as well as the Kanal collection, Belgian and international public and private collections. This will include works by renowned modern artists: Lygia Clark, Sonia Delaunay, Alberto Giacometti, Natalia Goncharova, Wifredo Lam and Henri Matisse, alongside contemporary international and Brussels-based artists including Sammy Baloji, Edith Dekyndt, Aglaia Konrad and Hana Mileti?.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Anonymous, Danse serpentine [II] (Cat.Lumi\u00e8re N\u00b0765-I), 1897 \u2013 19 June 1899. Digital betacam, nb
coloured, mute. 52 seconds. Collection Centre Pompidou, Paris. \u00a9 droits r\u00e9serv\u00e9s<\/p>\n

Alongside the collection exhibition, the inaugural programme includes a series of solo and group exhibitions. This includes the CIVA collection\u2019s exhibition, the city\u2019s renowned archive of architecture, Right to the city \u2014 Right to the future, which documents the story of the modernisation of Brussels. The city was regarded as a pioneer of urban change in the 1960s, affected not just by professional architects and planners but also by activists and citizens, and involved large-scale demolition, most notably the predominantly working-class North quarter, the neighbourhood of Kanal, under the so-called Manhattan Plan.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\" City Mine(d) Ball, Brussels, 1998. Image courtesy of Kanal<\/p>\n

Among the commissions by Kanal for the opening is a 700 sqm playground on the first floor where everyone aged four and up can explore and experiment freely. Created by Turner Prize-winning British-based collective Assemble<\/a>, it takes the form of an imaginary landscape of hills, volcanoes and distant planets.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\" Construction of the Playground in
Kanal \u00a9 Bart Grietens<\/p>\n

Another notable opening exhibition, as it directly references the Citro\u00ebn factory, is An infinite woman. In 1925, a Mangbetu woman from north-eastern Congo became the campaign image of a colonial propaganda expedition, sponsored by Citro\u00ebn. Now converted into a museum, Kanal reopens with this exhibition to revisit how the Mangbetu women functioned as a colonial symbol and how artists of African descent have reclaimed and subverted this imagery until the present day.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"Frida Orupabo, Mme Caltagirone, 2018. On loan from Private collector. <\/p>\n

At a press conference in Brussels, Kanal\u2019s managing director Yves Goldstein emphasised the creation of the museum as reflecting the deeply international city. With Brussels\u2019 international population now at almost 40%<\/a>, he sees the museum and art as a<\/p>\n

\u201cPowerful catalyst for living together in Brussels\u201d<\/p>\n

and that<\/p>\n

\u201cArchitecture is about building the city of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE: @kanal.centrepompidou<\/a><\/p>\n

CategoriesTagsAuthor \"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Kate McIlwee<\/a><\/p>\n

Kate McIlwee is a London-based writer and painter. With a background in art and technology, she explores art, culture, and identity – focusing on emerging communities and the digital climate reshaping what it means to be an artist today.<\/p>\n