Season 2025 - 2026
Presentation of the season by Denis Gielen
Given the many challenges currently confronting the visual arts sector in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, it is more vital than ever that support for artists and the development of audiences remain at the heart of the projects undertaken at MACS.
Continuing its programme of international artists, the Museum opens the 2025–2026 season with a major solo exhibition dedicated to the American sculptor Haim Steinbach, a leading figure of the New York avant-garde in the 1980s. The exhibition will run until the first weekend of November.
A poetic and whimsical tribute to the former miners of Grand-Hornu, Nedko Solakov’s installation The Miner’s Dream—the sixth chapter in his ongoing series A Cornered Solo Show—remains on view until spring in a ‘corner of the museum’ deliberately chosen by the Bulgarian artist for its position at the margins of the exhibition rooms.
As part of Europalia España, audiences will discover at the end of the year the multidisciplinary practice of Cristina Garrido, whose works—set against today’s backdrop of social media and artificial intelligence—deconstruct the representation of contemporary art in an ever more globalised world.
During the same period, the main gallery of MACS will present the Quarantaine–Quarantine project, in which Belgian artist Honoré δ’O evokes his recent ‘retreat’ to the arid yet inspiring desert of Chihuahua, near the renowned small town of Marfa, Texas.
In the summer, the season will conclude with a monographic exhibition devoted to the sculptor Lucia Bru, whose experimental approach to ceramics contributes to the international renaissance of this traditional medium within contemporary art in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
Finally, MACS will strengthen its role in raising awareness of contemporary art, particularly among school audiences, through its status as a thematic operator of the Parcours d’Éducation Culturelle et Artistique (PECA), the cultural and artistic education programme established by the Pacte pour un Enseignement d’excellence (Pact for Excellence in Education) of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. From the first years of nursery through to the final year of secondary school, thousands of pupils will continue to benefit from the guided tours offered by the education service, as well as from the many ‘travelling workshops’ organised in classrooms for schools that wish to take part.
At a time when images, amplified by AI algorithms and social media, shape the way we see and think, our publications and podcasts must also play a part in this process of learning, which lies at the very heart of the museum’s raison d’être.
Denis Gielen
Director of MACS
