RendezVous – Brussels Art Week

Brussels inaugurates the first official edition of RendezVous – Brussels Art Week (September 4–7, 2025), a citywide initiative that brings together leading galleries, museums, artist-run spaces, auction houses and studios across the capital in a moment of shared visibility and discovery. With synchronised openings and curated itineraries across three distinct neighbourhood clusters—Downtown, Midtown, and Uptown, RendezVous highlights the scope of what this city has to offer.

Founded by curators Laure Decock and Evelyn Simons, RendezVous emerged from a desire to create a unifying platform for Brussels’ multifaceted cultural landscape. Both Decock and Simons have long-standing ties to the city’s art community—through their work with institutions such as WIELS, Fondation CAB, and international biennials—and envisioned the project as a way to foreground Brussels as a site of international conversation.

RendezVous highlights the diversity of Brussels cultural scene, where world-class museums and grassroots collectives operate in close proximity, often overlapping and enriching one another. Each day of the program focuses on a different district. On September 5, the spotlight falls on Downtown Brussels and Molenbeek, with a mix of established institutions and experimental artist-run initiatives. September 6 shifts attention to Midtown—spanning Sablon, St. Gilles, and Forest—while September 7 closes in Uptown Ixelles. Alongside coordinated gallery openings, exclusive studio visits offer intimate access to the working spaces of artists, organised in collaboration with Level Five, SB34 and the WIELS Residency.

Salon de RendezVous at Rue de la Régence 67, is a former printing house strategically positioned between the city’s cultural districts. For the week-long event, this site is transformed into an immersive bar-installation by Zoe Williams, the Marseille- and London-based artist known for her sensuous, playful environments that mix performance, sculpture, and the politics of excess. Williams’ installation functions not only as a dive bar—serving artist-devised cocktails—but also as a stage for a three-day discursive program. Expect panel talks with local institutions, performances in collaboration with participating galleries, and nightly DJ listening sessions. In keeping with Williams’ practice, the Salon blurs boundaries between art, ritual, and social exchange, making it both a gathering point and a work of art in itself.

Among the 64 participating venues include Almine Rech, presenting Kenny Scharf, Bernier/Eliades, showing new sculptural works by Martina Quesada, Galerie Greta Meert, exhibits late drawings by Sol LeWitt alongside experimental painting by Liam Everett, Alfredo Jaar at La Patinoire Royal Bach, Gladstone hosts Nicholas Bierk’s meditative still lifes, Xavier Hufkens presents a solo show by Charline von Heyl and Spazio Nobile features an exhibition by Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswick, curated by Maria Cristina Didero. The artist-run initiative Gilbard, in Anderlecht, is staging participatory workshops around food, sustainability, and collective making. Museums and foundations also play a central role: WIELS hosts Magical Realism: Imagining Natural Dis/order, a timely exhibition exploring ecological futures, while Fondation Boghossian presents Regards intemporels: des pharaons à aujourd’hui, juxtaposing ancient Egyptian artefacts with contemporary African art. Other notable partners include Fondation CAB, La Loge, and the Jewish Museum of Belgium.

RendezVous – Brussels Art Week opens up the fall season with full force and reaffirms the city as the place to be. As the founders’ state: “For us and for many, Brussels is a unique place. Conveniently central, discreetly humble – surrounded by big sisters such as London and Paris, but brimming with a creative energy that is ferocious. A metropolis where perfumed fur coats rustle against grimy leather rave jackets, where day meets night the way Magritte imagined it, where you can have an apéro with a gueuze, a pintje ou bien une coupe des bulles. Where young artists can still afford to live and create, whilst a network of immaculate galleries, renowned institutions and experimental artist- run spaces offer a plethora of impressive exhibitions and transdisciplinary events. A city defined by an enriching diversity, a charming chaos, an avant-garde that has been going steady for over 100 years, and where new trends inscribe themselves onto a canvas of strong art historical traditions. An inspiring melting pot for local and international artists, curators, gallerists, researchers, philosophers, collectors and art dealers”

Visit the website for the full programme of events.

RendezVous-Brussels

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