There are 300 days to go until the opening of Belgium’s most ambitious art project, KANAL – Centre Pompidou, announced its Director General Yves Goldstein, who was appointed to the post 3,300 days ago. He spoke at the presentation of the official opening programme on 28 November 2026 (and immediately put on a hat, as, naturally, the construction site isn’t heated). Make a note in your cultural calendar and try not to leave Belgium at the end of November. Ten exhibitions of very different kinds will mark this event.
Personally, I visited the site twice during construction – once when only the skeleton of the Citroën Garage remained, and six months ago, when all the main buildings and halls began to take shape. The scale was astonishing then, it still is, and I am confident it will continue to amaze tourists, residents of Brussels, and the whole of Belgium.
There has been no shortage of debate over the Centre Pompidou suffix, both in political and cultural circles. Some Belgian artists believe that collaborating with the Parisian centre for contemporary art will turn KANAL into a “junior sibling” and submissive. But I maintain the opposite view: that it will allow Belgian art to situate itself within the European and global context, drawing on both the rich collection of the Parisian art temple and its international connections. My parents, during their trip to Paris and the Loire Valley castles in 1981, brought back more photos of the astonishing Centre Georges Pompidou than of the castles themselves.
What stood on the site of KANAL – Centre Pompidou? The Citroën Garage, also known as Citroën-Yser. The complex was designed by architects Maurice-Jacques Ravazé, Alexis Dumont, and Marcel Van Goethem, and was built in 1933–1934. It was conceived as a large automotive centre, including garages, repair workshops, offices, and a large showroom for Citroën Belux. The building functioned for many years as the main garage and headquarters of Citroën in Belgium.
After the Second World War, it was rebuilt and expanded several times, but retained its core function as an automotive centre. Citroën used the complex until 2012, with the last exhibition and service functions continuing until around 2017. In 2015, the building was purchased by the Brussels authorities, who decided to preserve its industrial architecture and transform the former Citroën Garage into the contemporary art museum KANAL – Centre Pompidou.
Meet Kasia Redzisz, the Artistic Director of KANAL – Centre Pompidou in Brussels. She was born in Poland and has long been involved with contemporary art on the international stage. Before joining KANAL, she was Senior Curator at Tate Liverpool, where she was responsible for exhibition programmes, international projects, and collaboration with artists. Earlier, she worked at Tate Modern in London and led the non-profit project Open Art Projects in Warsaw, which supports experimental and innovative art initiatives.
This is how she envisions the future of KANAL under her leadership:
“I want the museum to be a meeting place for different arts and cultures, where people can engage with the museum’s life, interact with artists, and discover new ideas. It is important for us to create a space that responds to the contemporary world and reflects the diversity of Brussels’ communities.”
10 opening exhibitions:
A Truly Immense Journey — a major collection-based exhibition that explores the movement of people, ideas, and artistic forms from the early 20th century to the present day through over 350 works of art.
NO SHOW — a group exhibition featuring performance and sound; the artists investigate the role of the museum as a space of experience and attention.
An Infinite Woman: Black Archives in Two Acts — an exhibition focused on “black archives” and a decolonial rethinking of historical images and their legacies.
Right to the City – Right to the Future — an architectural exhibition examining urban transformations, the right to the city, and urban practices.
Joëlle Tuerlinckx: La Première Fois — a solo installation centred on the perception of space and time, based on the artist’s experiences related to the museum’s construction process.
Département des Pièges — an exhibition combining objects from Brussels museums and playing with the idea of the museum as a metabolic, interconnected organism.
Banu Cennetoğlu: right? — an exhibition in which the artist uses space and text to reflect on human rights and civic responsibility.
Manon de Boer: Blindsight — an exhibition exploring hearing and vision through sound and visual media, inviting slow and attentive perception.
Joshua Serafin — a solo presentation addressing themes of migration, identity, and the body through performance and video.
Otobong Nkanga — a project rooted in participation and site memory, engaging visitors in active interaction with materials and history.
