Exhibitions in Antwerp
Antwerp is the foremost cultural destination by far. The city is home to a diverse range of interesting exhibitions and museums for you to visit. From modern art to graphic art and printmaking, there's nothing you won't find in this city. Antwerp is also home to some breathtaking churches that will dazzle you with their architecture.
Anybody home?
from 17 December 2022
Museum MAS
An exhibition that is entirely conceived with families in mind and that invites them to think about what a ‘home’ actually means: Is it a roof and four walls, or is it more than that? Is it a place, a feeling or just a memory? And what if you don't feel at home anywhere? That is something that young visitors and their families can reflect upon while visiting this new, imaginative and playful exhibition in which some surprising items are on show. We can give away one of the answers to that question right now: home is a word that means something different to everyone.
Museum MAS L’invitation au voyage
until 19 February 2023
Museum Plantin-Moretus
This exhibition is a journey of discovery through the thought and creative process of the Antwerp artist Philip Aguirre y Otegui and invites visitors to step into his studio. A versatile artist, Philip Aguirre has built up a rich body of work in a variety of art disciplines during the past 40 years. A focus on drawing forms the start of his thought process, but techniques such as etching and woodcutting also make a frequent appearance in his work. Visitors will also be able to link a number of drawings and sculptures together and will have an opportunity to wander through a sort of artist's studio.
Museum Plantin-Moretus The Nottebohm Room open to individual visitors
until 26 February 2023
20 April - 9 September 2023
Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library
The Nottebohm Room is the hidden gem of the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library and looks like something straight out of the magical world of Harry Potter. This breathtaking historical setting is where the library's first 150,000 books are preserved. The doors of the Nottebohm Room normally only swing open for exhibitions, lectures, concerts or tours, but in 2023, individual visitors will temporarily have an opportunity to visit it as well.
Erfgoed Hendrik Conscience Finnis Terrae
until 26 February 2023
Museum Plantin-Moretus and other locations
The Antwerp-based Galerie Geukens & De Vil is organising a large-scale art walk focusing on a single, universal theme – our planet. No fewer than 50 contemporary Belgian artists will be exhibiting their work depicting their vision of the theme at 13 unique locations around the city. These include the garden of the Cathedral of Our Lady and the Hendrik Conscience Library. The aim behind Finis Terrae is to take a look at the world today, while emphasising hope, human resilience and the power of art.
Finisterrae IKONEN | Anton Corbijn Exhibition
until 16 April 2023
Handelsbeurs (Stock Exchange)
This exhibition is a stunning and surprising introduction to the universe of the world-famous photographer and film-maker Anton Corbijn, who is considered one of the most influential photographers of our time, in both music and portrait photography. Not only will IKONEN be presenting a selection of his portrait photographs, but it will also be bringing three unseen series to Antwerp: Cemeteries, a.somebody and Lenin, USSR.
Anton Corbijn Expo Marie-José Van Hee Architecten. A walk
until 21 May 2023
De Singel
Thirty years after her first solo exhibition and 400 projects later, the architect Marie-José Van Hee returns to De Singel. Through a series of interventions in the exhibition hall and around the arts campus, this 'grande dame' of the Belgian architectural world will show her vision of care in architecture.
VAi Rembrandt - a photographer avant la lettre
27 January - 22 May 2023
Museum De Reede
Rembrandt is celebrated worldwide not only as a painter, but also as a masterful draughtsman and etcher. Throughout his career, Rembrandt continued working with the etching needle. This exhibition will display a selection of the 80 or so works, while seeking to encapsulate the unique view of reality as seen through the eyes of this world-famous artist.
museum-dereede.com A Topological Boulevard
28 January - 6 May 2023
KMSKA (Print Room)
Artist Sharon Van Overmeiren (Antwerp, 1985) made a selection of drawings, prints and books from the collection of the Museum Plantin-Moretus for the print room of the KMSKA. She confronts them with her own sculptures, which are created from parts of the most diverse objects.
kmska.be The Academy celebrates its 360th birthday
from 16 February
Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp
In 2023, the Academy will celebrate its 360th birthday. In 1663, the artist David Teniers initiated the founding of the Antwerp Academy, one of the very first art schools in the world. But instead of looking back at its part and looking ahead into the future, the Academy is taking a 360°-perspective and is taking in the world around it. What is the position of the Academy in the world and in what way does the world influence the Academy?
www.ap-arts.be Susan Meiselas - Mediations
17 February - 4 June 2023
FOMU | Photo Museum
Mediations is the first retrospective in Belgium of the Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas. The exhibition itself spans more than fifty years, from her early portraits of neighbours to intimate shots of strippers and her iconic photographs from crisis and war zones.
Susan Meiselas' work, which includes several long-term studies, covers a wide range of themes and countries. She draws attention to minorities and conflicts that the general public often overlooks.
FOMU melanie bonajo - When the body says Yes
17 February - 4 June 2023
FOMU | Photo Museum
When the body says Yes is an immersive video installation by melanie bonajo, a Dutch artist, film-maker, sexological bodyworker and somatic sex coach and educator. The installation, which was commissioned by the Mondrian Fund for the 2022 Venice Biennale, forms part of the artist's ongoing investigation into the current status of intimacy in our increasingly alienated, utility-driven world. According to bonajo, touch can be a powerful remedy for today's epidemic of loneliness.
FOMU Grace Ndiritu reimagines the FOMU Collection
17 February 2023 - 7 January 2024
FOMU | Photo Museum
In the exhibition ‘Grace Ndiritu reimagines the FOMU collection’, the artist Grace Ndiritu constructs a photographic universe in which she integrates painting, textiles and interior design. This is a radical and holistic reinterpretation of what a collection exhibition can be.
In her practice as an artist, Ndiritu explores how our world is changing. She also sees shamanism as a way to reactivate museum collections. Ndiritu's photographic installation ‘A Quest For Meaning’ (2014) is the starting point of the exhibition and of her search through the FOMU collection. Ndiritu combines photographs associatively. By creating surprising combinations, she gives new meanings to work by artists including Annemie Augustijns, Dirk Braeckman, Suzy Embo, Rinko Kawauchi, Paul Kooiker, Tina Modotti, Man Ray and Wolfgang Tillmans.
FOMU Geometrically Wired. IO Van Oostveldt between clothing and art
25 February - 30 July 2023
MoMu | Fashion Museum Antwerp
MoMu is offering an insight into the life and work of the Belgian artist IO Van Oostveldt. Geometry and experimentation form a common thread in her art and clothing designs.
MoMu Antwerp Baroque Influencers
March - November 2023
Different locations
A new city festival consisting of a variety of exhibitions, baroque music concerts, a lecture series with speakers from home and abroad and a striking trail of experiences for young and old. The festival will showcase the influence of the Baroque era and the central role played by the Jesuits in Antwerp. From masterpieces by Peter Paul Rubens, seventeenth-century devotional prints and a rediscovered avant-garde movement from the interwar period, to contemporary art and the very latest debates about solidarity.
barokkeinfluencers.be Reopening of the permanent collection on display in the DIVA
Opening weekend 24 March 2023
DIVA | Museum for diamonds, jewellery and silver
DIVA, the Museum of Diamonds, Jewellery and Silver will be celebrating 575 years of diamonds in Antwerp by renewing the display of its permanent collection presentation. From 24 March 2023 onwards, DIVA will invite visitors on a journey that embraces the main themes in the collection – diamonds, jewellery and silver. This journey starts in a brand new room where visitors will get to know the raw materials, zoom in on recent developments in the sector such as urban mining, upcycling and the lab-grown diamond, as well as learning more about the issues surrounding ecology and ethics. Visitors will then encounter the experts, traders, creators and designers and, ultimately, the people who wear the jewellery or make use of the silverware. In this way, the museum tells a broader story from raw material to object, or from mine to ring in the form of seven thematic galleries.
www.divaantwerp.be James Ensor & music
30 March - June 2023
Museum Vleeshuis
The artist James Ensor was also a gifted composer. His ballet, La gamme d'amour, premiered at the Antwerp Opera in 1924. Museum Vleeshuis has preserved three design sketches of the sets from that ballet, drawn from Ensor's works. Those sketches form the starting point for a small focus presentation around Ensor's music graphics.
Especially for the presentation, Nicolas Callot and Bart Rodyns recorded excerpts from the ballet on a late 19th century piano and harmonium.
The concert series "Wednesday Sounds" (January to June 2023) is also dedicated to James Ensor and his era.
museumvleeshuis.be Man Ray and fashion
22 April - 13 August 2023
MoMu | Fashion Museum Antwerp
In spring 2023, MoMu will highlight Man Ray's oeuvre from a fashion perspective. The exhibition unites Man Ray's iconic photography and artwork with fashion silhouettes from the interwar period and the work of contemporary fashion designers and photographers inspired by his work.
Heimwee (homesickness) – group exhibition
17 May - 3 September 2023
Red Star Line Museum
The Red Star Line Museum engages with a diverse group of Antwerp residents about the power of memories. By means of various initiatives, the museum be shining a light on the many different facets of homesickness in a way that stimulates all of our senses and makes visitors pause to consider exactly what homesickness is. The project addresses a universal feeling we all know (and recognise). The events scheduled to take place in the year to come also include a family festival, a herb garden at the Permeke Library and several workshops. In addition to those events, a diverse group of 10 young emerging female artists will present a work on the subject of homesickness that has been created especially for this exhibition in collaboration with coach co-curator Malikka Bouaissa of Arteshoq vzw.
redstarline.be Antwerp Art Weekend
18 - 21 May 2023
The Antwerp Art Weekend is a four-day contemporary visual arts event in Antwerp, during which art spaces in and around the city join forces to celebrate and further promote contemporary art. Antwerp Art Weekend is the best way to experience the city and its thriving art scene, with a huge number of galleries and museums to explore. Spaces pull out all the stops to offer a comprehensive programme with plenty of additional activities.
Antwerp Art Weekend De Pelgrim (The Pilgrim)
27 May - 3 September 2023
KMSKA (Print Room)
In 1924, in the shadow of the historical avant-garde, a few Flemish artists founded the Catholic artists' association De Pelgrim (The Pilgrim). Their aim? To oppose a world that was becoming increasingly modern and to return to faith. However, they did not do so by clinging to the past. On the contrary. Pelgrim artists understood the new, innovative aspect of modern art all too well and used it as a tool to lure young and old back to the church. Call it a ‘rear-garde’. In its short existence, De Pelgrim managed to gather numerous artists from home and abroad. This exhibition delves deeper into the association's (international) network and the art that emerged from it. Expect a fascinating mix of paintings, drawings and documents. This exhibition is part of the Antwerp city festival Baroque Influencers.
kmska.be 
barokkeinfluencers.be MASTERS EXPO
22 until 25 June 2023
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts was one of the first art schools in the world and, with its unique historic campus in Antwerp as its base, it has made a name for itself with its educational programmes and research projects. For each student, the master's year is a profound and intense period that defines their first steps on their budding artistic career. During the Masters Expo, all master's students display their graduation projects, from sculpture to jewellery design!
Vincen Beeckman (working title)
23 June - 8 October 2023
FOMU | Photo Museum
The Belgian artist Vincen Beeckman's first major museum exhibition will be on display during the summer of 2023. For Beeckman, photography is an excuse to connect people. A characteristic common to all of his works is that the people he photographs take centre stage at every stage of their collaboration. Beeckman takes the time to develop a genuine contact by being present again and again, even if only briefly. The exhibition will provide extensive coverage of several long-running projects. The exhibition will feature highlights of twenty years of collaboration, combined with new work that he created for a commission from the FOMU.
FOMU Silver Triennial: a contemporary design exhibition
28 August - 8 October 2023
DIVA | Museum for diamonds, jewellery and silver
From 28 August onwards, DIVA will be presenting the 20th edition of the Silver Triennial, the foremost international competition for contemporary silver. The travelling exhibition will showcase the best entries from this triennial competition and is organised by the Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst (Association for Goldsmiths' Art) in Hanau. Though the exhibition itself will be transferred from the Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau, it will have a distinctive look and presentation in DIVA. The exhibition is aimed at design, art and contemporary (silver) work enthusiasts, as well as at makers of contemporary silver.
www.divaantwerp.be Exhibition about World War II in Antwerp, 1940-1945 (working title)
from 7 September 2023
Museum MAS
This exhibition shows the impact of World War II on the people of Antwerp from 1940 to 1945, during which Antwerp was hit particularly hard. Nazi terror, the persecution of Jews and military violence led to the deaths of 25,000 residents. The Nazi dictatorship divided the population and led to the mass persecution of Jews and dissenters. In Antwerp, the pressures of war and persecution drove the city to breaking point.
This exhibition reveals how this could happen, what it meant to live in Antwerp's Nazi society and what happens when basic values such as freedom and equality fall by the wayside.
Museum MAS Red Star Line Museum – 10 years young
27 September - 1 October 2023
Red Star Line Museum
From Wednesday 27 September to Sunday 1 October, the Red Star Line Museum will celebrate its 10th anniversary together with families, friends and partners. It will be a true family weekend for the general public.
Red Star Line Museum Turning Heads
20 October 2023 - 21 January 2024
KMSKA
Artists in the Low Countries were intrigued by the human face and often depicted it. And not only in portraits. They also painted countenances where the model's identity did not matter. Think of Quinten Metsijs' grotesque heads, Pieter Bruegel's peasant mugs, Peter Paul Rubens' studies of a head and the expressive visages by Adriaan Brouwer and Rembrandt. These works, sometimes called ‘mugs’, do not represent someone but something. Not a specific person but a type, feeling, or character trait. As a first-time feature, Bold Faces explores the story behind these intriguing heads and showcases them in all their diversity. Rooted in innovative scholarly research, the project is translated into something light-hearted and accessible. The exhibition features a high-quality selection of some sixty works including prestigious loans of Flemish Masters (Metsijs, Bruegel, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens and Brouwer) and leading international artists (Dürer, Bosch, Barocci, Rembrandt and Vermeer). The Antwerp Old Masters were phenomenal painters of faces. The KMSKA is therefore the ideal venue for the first major worldwide exhibition featuring these heads.
kmska.be Rare and indispensable: 100 masterpieces from Flemish collections
31 October 2023 - 25 February 2024
Museum MAS
Magritte, Bacon, Ensor, Moore, Jordaens and Rubens are just a few of the world-famous names on display at the MAS this autumn. The unmissable exhibition ‘Rare and Indispensable’ will display a unique selection of masterpieces that you would otherwise have to travel all over Flanders to see, or that are normally never accessible to the public at all. The exhibition itself is being held in honour of the 20th anniversary of the Flemish Outstanding Artefacts Decree.
Museum MAS From scribble to cartoon | Drawings from Bruegel to Rubens in Flemish collections
17 November 2023 - 18 February 2024
Museum Plantin-Moretus
In this exhibition, the Museum Plantin-Moretus will present the 80 finest old drawings from Flemish collections. As a whole, this will form a stunning and representative overview of how and why people drew in our region in the 16th and 17th centuries. While masterpieces from the museum's own collection form the basis of this exhibition, they will be supplemented by complementary masterpieces from other Flemish public and private collections. This will be a unique opportunity to see a number of resounding pieces side by side, such as the Rubens' sketchbook as a 12-year-old, Antoon van den Wijngaerde's 10-metre long Panorama of Zeeland and the extremely rare Italy sketchbooks of the sculptor Pieter Verbruggen. And besides big names such as Frans Floris, Pieter Bruegel, Anthony Van Dyck or Jacques Jordaens, the beautiful and rarely shown sheets by lesser-known draughtsmen like Jan van Stinemolen, Hans Collaert, Pieter van Lint, Godfried Maes and Jan Erasmus Quellinus will also form a surprising discovery.
Museum Plantin-Moretus Antwerpen tomorrow
Ongoing visits
City Hall
On the ground floor of the renovated Town Hall, you can discover the story of how Antwerp developed as a city. Where did the city come from and how is it expanding? How will the city of today and tomorrow deal with challenges such as liveability, climate and major infrastructure projects? Also on view is the temporary exhibition entitled "Renovation of City Hall from the 'Schoon Verdiep' (Bel étage) to the 'Verlicht Verdiep' (Illuminated Floor)".
antwerpenmorgen.be
Copyright header image: Gianni Camilleri