Wiels

WIELS is a contemporary art centre in Forest, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium. The centre opened in 2007 in the former Blomme Building, which belonged to the Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery.[1] It has three exhibition platforms with a total exhibition space of 1,800 m2 (19,000 sq ft), an auditorium, studio workshops for artists-in-residence, and a café/foyer and bookshop in the former brewing hall.

WIELS
Exterior of the art centre
Interactive fullscreen map
Established2007
LocationForest, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Coordinates50°49′28″N 4°19′33″E
TypeArt museum
WebsiteOfficial website

WIELS has no collection, instead putting on temporary exhibitions by national and international artists.[2] It hosts nine artist-in-residency studios, for which it receives hundreds of applications every year.[3]

For its tenth anniversary in 2017, WIELS organised a group exhibition called the Absent Museum, a reference to the incorrect assumption that WIELS is an art museum.[4]

Building history

In 1931, the Wielemans-Ceuppens family built the Blomme building (named after its architect Adrien Blomme) to expand its brewing business. At the time, it was the largest brewhouse in continental Europe. In 1988, the brewery closed, and in 1993, the building was given protected status, saving it from demolition. In 2001, the Brussels-Capital Region acquired the building and began renovating it to open WIELS.[5][6] The name WIELS was derived from Wielemans-Ceuppens. It is one of the few examples of modernist industrial architecture in Belgium.[2]

See also

References

Sources
  1. "Wiels | The history of Wiels". Wiels. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  2. "Gallery Wiels". ArtRabbit. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  3. Rachel Donadio (17 July 2015). "Brussels Making a Strong Bid for Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  4. "WIELS | The Absent Museum". WIELS. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  5. "Brasserie Wielemans-Ceuppens // A Battle for Brussels' Soul". Brussels Beer City. 14 February 2020. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  6. Starikova, Anastasia (7 December 2015). "A Brief History of WIELS Art Centre in Brussels". Culture Trip. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
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