KANAL – Centre Pompidou

KANAL – Centre Pompidou!

13 months of exhibitions and shows before conversion work begins

Before it becomes the largest cultural institution in Brussels, with 35,000 m2 devoted to artistic creation in all its forms, KANAL – Centre Pompidou proposes a unique cultural immersion in the buildings of the former Citröen garage.

Before conversion work begins, KANAL – Centre Pompidou will open its doors from May 2018 until June 2019 to allow the public to discover an exceptional cultural heritage, rich in history and preserved in its current state. Benefiting from the richness of the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the former Citroën garage will turn into a site hosting several exhibitions mixing visual arts, design, architecture, major installations and creations by Brussels-based artists, as well as a programme of performing-arts shows co-produced for this occasion with many of the city’s cultural actors.

A future cultural hub

The ambition of KANAL – Centre Pompidou is to offer a centre of culture and exchange open to all, to put the creative scene of Brussels in the limelight, and to contribute to the capital’s cultural appeal.

Driven by the Brussels-Capital Region, this ambitious project seeks to provide Brussels with a cultural hub favourable to the aura of the capital of Europe. In the context of a ten-year partnership with the Centre Pompidou, the future KANAL – Centre Pompidou will not only house a museum of modern and contemporary art, but also the rich collections of architecture and urbanism of the CIVA Foundation. It will also accommodate many public spaces with a range of functions, including several stages for the performing arts.

A wide-ranging programme

Events imagined in response to the identity of the site and its unique aesthetic qualities, but also its history

From 5 May 2018 until 10 June 2019, following a radically experimental approach, the former Citroën garage will turn into a platform open to a reflection on the stakes of the museum of the future. Curated by Bernard Blistène, the director of the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, a multidisciplinary programme will seek to fill the spaces that were recently emptied of their functions and left in their current state. Many of the proposals seek to echo the identity of the site, but also its human and social history, tangible across the different workshops and offices and in the different fittings of this vast complex.

Eager to integrate Kanal – Centre Pompidou in its context, the programme will let a vast audience have access, in one and the same venue, to a wide-ranging and unique cultural offer. The programme follows the rhythm of the Brussels cultural calendar, in partnership with, among others, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, BOZAR, Performatik Festival, Flagey, Kaaitheater and La Raffinerie (Charleroi Danse).