• Opening times

  10/02/2022 - 30/07/2023: * monday: closed * tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday: from 10:00 to 17:00 * saturday and sunday: from 11:00 to 18:00

• Price

  Normal: 10,00 € - Article 27: 1,25 €

Two exhibition rooms contextualise two burning topics for museums around the world: by shedding scientific light on the questions of colonialism and diversity, on the one hand, and the problem of the restitution of cultural goods looted during the Second World War, on the other, the Royal Museums aims to be a laboratory for reflection that will enable us to participate in the construction of the museum of tomorrow, by insisting on how scientific research, one of the museum's primordial missions, can contribute to the contemporary debate. LOOTED ARTWORKS: HOW TO PROCEED WITH THE RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL GOODS LOOTED DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR? The issue of restitution is not new and is in fact broader than the most prominent case, that of the lootings committed during the Second World War and during the Third Reich. The Old Masters and Modern painters brought together in one room bear witness to the complexity and continuing relevance of the issue, some 76 years after the end of the Second World War. There is only one way to identify works of questionable source, and that is to investigate their provenance. Knowing in which hands a work has circulated from the time it left the studio to the present day is an essential but laborious task, which still raises many questions today. The very specific case of the painting by Lovis Corinth presented here reveals the complexity of the restitution process. Are there any international agreements on the matter? Were the lootings organised? Was the art market involved? Where do the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium stand today? These are a few of the questions that we try to answer in this thematic room. Old Masters Museum - Room 51 WHY REVISE THE TITLE OF A RUBENS MASTERPIECE? Titles of artworks are being questioned in museums around the world: the responsibility of museums to be inclusive and non-discriminatory has grown in intensification following social movements such as #metoo or #BlackLivesMatter. The Rubens work in this room, which has been renamed for the second time after 2007, is a typical example of how a title can remind the public of a painful colonial experience. The Royal Museums validate the public’s reactions and aim to commit to a policy of inclusion, based on historical facts and contexts, and thus, in that way, contribute to a scientifically based debate. Why is the title of a Rubens masterpiece today now more than ever the subject of discussion? Why was this oil sketch originally untitled and what was its function in Rubens’s studio? What were Rubens's original intentions and what place did people from Africa have in his thinking and work? These are all questions around which we would like to stimulate a constructive dialogue. Old Masters Museum - Room 60

• Opening times

  14/10/2022 - 12/02/2023: * monday: closed * tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday: from 10:00 to 17:00 * saturday and sunday: from 11:00 to 18:00

• Price

  Article 27: 1,25 €

Miradas de Mujeres (Women’s Gaze), highlights the view of Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave on Frida Kahlo, a woman’s perspective on the artist’s role in society, and their shared love of fabric, patterns and colours. Isabelle de Borchgrave’s approach explores an often-ignored facet of Frida Kahlo's intimate personality, surprisingly more cheerful and radiant than her artistic work might suggest. By using more than 4 kilometers of paper and cardboard painted by hand, she created dresses, carpets, furniture, trees, recreating the unique universe of the Mexican artist and her iconic house, the Casa Azul (The Blue House). The exhibition invites the public to dive into the joyful universe entirely made of paper of Isabelle de Borchgrave and to be inspired by the generosity of this contemporary artist whose creative practice remains resolutely incomparable.

• Opening times

  14/10/2022 - 12/02/2023: * monday: closed * tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday: from 10:00 to 17:00 * saturday and sunday: from 11:00 to 18:00

• Price

  Article 27: 1,25 €

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium dedicate an exhibition to Jean-Pierre Ghysels (Uccle, 1932), a Belgian sculptor who studied with Zadkine at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. The exhibition will give the public the opportunity to discover a series of sculptures made of the artist's two favourite materials, beaten copper and bronze, works which, even when small in size, surprise us with their monumentality and sensuality.

• Opening times

  14/10/2022 - 12/02/2023: * monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday: from 10:00 to 17:00 * saturday and sunday: from 11:00 to 18:00

• Price

  Prévente: 15,00 € - Normal: 17,00 € - Article 27: 1,25 €

For the first time, the major stages that marked the links between Picasso's work and the history of abstract art is brought to light. From the first Cubist experiments of 1907, carried out on the fringes of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, to his later work, which is sometimes situated on the borders of action painting, this surprising relationship is shown in a subtle chronological and thematic exhibition, where more than one hundred exceptional works reveal the artist's pendulum movement between abstraction and the figurative over the decades. Another major theme of the exhibition is the artist's studio, a true formal laboratory, and shows Picasso's creative process through various series of drawings and prints, allowing the viewer to understand how he works and reflects on the representation of the chosen motifs. The exhibition, with its sharp and innovative theme, invites the viewer to appreciate Pablo Picasso’s extraordinary creativity and his ability to constantly reinvent himself.