Art Antwerp

With Graciela Iturbide

Curated by Sophia Greiff & Melissa Harris

18/09/2026 – 17/01/2027

Eyes to Fly With is the first major retrospective of the work of renowned Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide in Belgium. Her work explores themes such as identity, social relationships and ephemerality.

The exhibition has been developed in close consultation with the artist and comprises around 160 works, from iconic black-and-white photographs to rarely seen vintage prints, colour photos and contact prints. Together they offer a unique insight into over half a century of photographic work.  

With Léonard Pongo

18/09/2026 – 17/01/2027

What do you hear when you listen to the earth? Belgian-Congolese artist Léonard Pongo (1988) has been roaming the Democratic Republic of Congo for almost ten years, with this question in mind. He has developed a spatial installation specially for FOMU combining photography, video and textiles.

Although people are absent from his photographs, the relationship between humans and the land lies at the heart of the work. During his journeys, Pongo collaborated with researchers and local communities whose stories and knowledge served as a key source of inspiration. A recurring motif is the banana tree a symbol of life, fertility and cyclical renewal.

With Ossip Zadkine

31/10/2026 – 18/04/2027

Sixty years after his death, KMSKA pays tribute to sculptor Ossip Zadkine (Vitebsk 1888 – Paris 1967). Although Zadkine gained world fame when living in the Paris of the roaring twenties, his career found an early foothold in Belgium. ‘Les Belges étaient mes premiers amateurs,’ he wrote himself. In 1933 he got his first retrospective not in France, but in Brussels, at the Palace of Fine Arts (now BOZAR).

Ossip Zadkine was a tireless, unquantifiable and prolific artist with an impressive oeuvre. Today we count more than 600 sculptures, over 750 gouaches and drawings, and some 200 lithographs and etchings.

With Guy Vandenbranden

16/10/2026 – 17/01/2027

To mark the centenary of Guy Vandenbranden’s (1926–2014) birth, the KMSKA presents a special exhibition dedicated to one of Belgium’s leading representatives of constructivism. Discover how Vandenbranden became a pioneer of geometric abstraction and explore the career of a key figure in the post-war European avant-garde.

The exhibition traces Vandenbranden’s artistic development, from his early expressionist works to his clear, geometric compositions of colour and line. Inspired by artists such as Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian and Victor Vasarely, he developed a distinctive constructivist visual language in which form, colour and space are carefully balanced. His pursuit of precision also led him to experiment with industrial materials and fuelled his interest in modern architecture.

With Philip Aguirre y Otegui

03/10/2026 – 17/01/2027

Philip Aguirre believes in the universal power of art. For him, the search for beauty is a necessity of life. As essential as water and bread. His work expresses the hope that beauty can contribute to alleviating social inequality. His sculptures therefore come into their own in public spaces.

This solo exhibition at the KMSKA offers an overview of his oeuvre, from the 1980s to the present day. For this, Aguirre has opted for monumental sculptures that enter into dialogue with his smaller works.

With Lee Bul

Curated by June Young Kwak and Doryun Chong, with Heyeon Kim and Sunny Cheung, from Leeum Museum of Art and M+.

13/11/2026 – 07/03/2027

Emerging in the late 1980s, Lee Bul developed her work in close dialogue with South Korea’s shifting social and political realities. Working across sculpture, installation, performance and two-dimensional media, she has consistently explored the relationships between the body and society, humanity and technology, nature and civilisation. Her work probes the promises and failures of modernity, as well as the political forces that shape our collective imagination.

Featuring more than 200 key works, Lee Bul: From 1998 to Now traces the artist’s sustained engagement with utopian thought, modernist architecture and the historical avant-garde. From early iconoclastic performances to immersive, multi-sensory installations, the exhibition reveals an artist who combines formal experimentation with philosophical depth. Today, Lee Bul is widely recognised as a pioneering figure for younger generations of artists worldwide.

25/01/2025 – 03/01/2027

Muhka presents a renewed, concise collection display that, through around thirty key works, features Flemish artists: artists who live and work here, now or in the past – including Marcel Broodthaers, Panamarenko, Luc Tuymans, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Otobong Nkanga and Laure Prouvost – as well as artists with a connection to Flanders, such as Marlene Dumas, Jimmie Durham, Gordon Matta-Clark and Nicola L. They are placed in dialogue with international artists from the collection of the Flemish Community, including Cady Noland, Barbara Kruger, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Taus Makhacheva and Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin.

The collection display starts from the post-war avant-garde in Antwerp and uses the past as a platform for understanding the multipolar world of today and the future, with the three collection perspectives – image, action and society – as its guide.

06/06/2026 – 03/01/2027

In a context in which positions, structures and expectations are constantly shifting, this presentation does not propose a new narrative. It starts from a simple question: what happens when artists continue to act without knowing what that action will bring?

The exhibition unfolds across two rooms.

Within the permanent presentation De toestand is vloeibaar, Ongoing functions as a temporary accent. Where the collection shows the mutability of the world, this presentation focuses on an attitude within that mutability.

Not because change is guaranteed.
But because stopping is not an option.

The collection presentation is thematic. The five themes (Motion, Human Nature, Urban Nature, Entanglement and Contact Planes) are interconnected with the landscape. This allows the artworks to engage in dialogue with each other and with the park itself.

Admire key works by artists such as Henry Moore, Rik Wouters, and Richard Deacon. Discover surprising works by artists like Panamarenko, Alberto Giacometti, and the younger generation of contemporary artists. The collection provides a unique overview of more than a hundred years of sculpture.

Curated by Geert Bruloot, Romy Cockx & Kaat Debo

28/03/2026 – 17/01/2027

MoMu celebrates 40 years of the Antwerp Six with a unique exhibition in 2026.

The exhibition highlights the unique trajectory that connects these six exceptional designers. It began with their study at the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and resulted in six highly influential solo careers. In 1986, Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee put Antwerp on the fashion map when they each presented their own collections at the British Designer Show in London. This led to their international breakthrough and established the City of Antwerp as a capital of fashion. Their unique designs continue to influence international fashion today.

Curated by Meera Curam & Wim Mertens

05/12/2026 – 06/06/2027 

Today, hand-painted and printed floral cotton fabrics from India – known as chintz – are once again the focus of attention. What story can a fabric tell beyond its wearability?

Centered on the archives and historical textile collections of MoMu, this exhibition investigates fabrics as material repositories of memory, trade, politics, and community history. Focusing on hand-painted and printed floral cotton textiles from India, it examines how textile practices carry and transmit social, cultural, and historical meanings across generations.

30/10/2026 – 11/01/2027

Death is a constant that has fascinated artists for centuries. From the Middle Ages onwards, this fascination took shape in the motif of the Danse Macabre, in which death enters the world of the living and confronts them with one universal truth: everything is transient, and no one can escape the end.

With this event, Museum De Reede explores how artists have engaged with this subject throughout the ages. From historical prints to contemporary interpretations, they have continually sought images that reveal how life and death are intertwined.

20/07/2025 – 12/09/2027 

Museum Mayer van den Bergh is undergoing renovations and is expanding. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that the curtain has come down on the collection itself. A total of 43 museum enthusiasts from Antwerp have selected a work that will be on show for you to admire in the Maagdenhuis while the museum itself is closed. So why not look at the collection through their eyes and (re)discover a multitude of masterpieces?

It’s all about the stories in The Red Star Line Museum. The stories of the passengers who travelled to America with the Red Star Line, in search of happiness and a better future. All these stories tell the history behind the Red Star Line.

A voyage of discovery for the youngest visitors and their families. Touching, playing, and exploring are encouraged here and now. In this interactive exhibition, you embark on a journey with young children (aged 1 and up). Navigating between seven different stations, you discover together what traveling is all about and the emotions associated with departure.