Brussels is launching its autumn 2025 art season with a lineup of major contemporary exhibitions featuring globally recognized conceptual artists, politically engaged works, and prominent female voices.
From September through early 2026, venues across the Belgian capital will host retrospectives, solo shows, and thematic group exhibitions covering a wide range of styles and media.
Key highlights include a major retrospective on conceptual art pioneer John Baldessari at Bozar, politically charged work by Palestinian artist Inas Halabi at La Loge, and a new solo show by Iranian-born sculptor Nairy Baghramian at WIELS. The season also features exhibitions rooted in local artistic traditions and showcases Brussels-based artists.
Season Highlights Across the City
John Baldessari at Bozar
Running from 19 September to 1 February 2026, Bozar presents a retrospective on American conceptual artist John Baldessari, focusing on his output during the 1980s. Known for his playful combinations of text and imagery, Baldessari was a key figure in postmodern art. The exhibition revisits a decade in which the artist expanded his visual vocabulary, challenging artistic conventions with humour and irony.
Inas Halabi Explores Memory and Displacement
At La Loge, Inas Halabi presents All That Remains from 4 September to 11 November. The Palestinian artist and filmmaker investigates Israeli national parks established on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages. By blending image and sound, her work captures layered histories of trauma, colonialism, and resilience. The exhibition takes a quasi-archaeological approach to documenting how landscapes reflect political violence.
Female Artists Lead Solo Shows
Three solo exhibitions spotlight women artists with diverse practices. Rachel Labastie’s Loom of the Land, on view at Le Botanique from 3 September to 26 November, explores themes of memory and materiality through clay, wicker, and other natural substances. Her works draw on her family’s artisanal heritage and emphasize the physicality of artistic creation.
Ceramicist Claudine Monchaussé is the subject of a retrospective at La Verrière, running from 11 September to 13 December. The exhibition, titled Sourdre, spans five decades of her career and includes collaborations with other artists. Her stoneware sculptures, shaped in wood kilns using ancestral techniques, reference natural forces and ritualistic forms.
Photographer Charlotte Abramow presents MAURICE, Sadness and Laughter at Hangar from 19 September to 21 December. The deeply personal project chronicles her father’s battle with cancer through a series of poetic and colourful tableaux. The exhibition reflects on illness, familial bonds, and emotional transformation.
New Thematic and Group Exhibitions
The Boghossian Foundation hosts Fire from 25 September to 1 March 2026, continuing its series on natural elements. The exhibition brings together contemporary artists such as Wim Delvoye and Bill Viola to explore fire’s symbolism and destructive beauty through multimedia installations.
At WIELS, Nairy Baghramian’s Nameless opens on 25 October and runs through 1 March 2026. Known for her experimental sculptures and installations, the Berlin-based artist returns to Brussels with a new body of work that challenges formal conventions and embraces contradiction.
Michel Couturier’s La Friche la Galaxie opens on the same day at Centrale for Contemporary Art. The exhibition surveys a decade of work focused on urban landscapes and peripheral spaces, blending photography, video, and text drawn from literary sources such as Homer and Italo Calvino.
Ongoing and Upcoming Events
Several exhibitions that opened earlier this year continue into the autumn. Super Conceptual Pop, on view at Fondation CAB until 31 October, features humorous and irreverent interpretations of conceptual art. Sebastião Salgado’s Amazônia, running until 9 November at Tour & Taxis, showcases black-and-white images of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants. The immersive exhibition includes a soundscape by Jean-Michel Jarre.
The Art et marges musée presents Aussi Loin Qu’ici until 29 March 2026. This two-part exhibition includes works by around 40 outsider artists, exploring imagined geographies and mental journeys.
Brussels will also host several major art fairs in early 2026, including Ceramic (21–25 January), BRAFA Art Fair (25 January–1 February), Affordable Art Fair (4–8 February), Photo Brussels Festival (22 January–22 February), and Collectible (12–15 March).
More information on individual exhibitions and venues is available at official websites such as www.visit.brussels, www.bozar.be, www.la-loge.be, and others listed in the event details.
