Wiels

Wiels is a contemporary art centre situated in Forest, in the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium in a building of the former Wielemans brewery.

Wiels at the Blomme building in 2008

Officially opened on May 25, 2007, WIELS 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 monumental brewing hall. The institution has no collection, instead putting on temporary exhibitions by national and international artists. Wiels has been described as "an international laboratory for the creation and the diffusion of contemporary art"[1] and is the leading contemporary art institution in Belgium.[2] It has nine artist-in-residency studios for which it receives hundreds of applications every year,[3] and numerous programs of educational activities and community oriented programs.

For its tenth anniversary, WIELS organized in 2017 The Absent Museum, an ambitious exhibition project in which all departments were involved.

Artists to have exhibited there include René Daniëls, Rita McBride, Yayoi Kusama, Mike Kelley, Luc Tuymans, David Claerbout, Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven, Walter Swennen, Francis Alÿs, Jef Geys, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Daan van Golden, Tauba Auerbach, Franz Erhard Walther, Mark Leckey, Thomas Bayrle, Edith Dekyndt and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Wiels is under the direction of Dirk Snauwaert, who has been involved with WIELS Contemporary Art centre since July 2004; he was appointed Artistic Director in January 2005.[4]

The name 'Wiels' comes from a pils formerly brewed by Wielemans.

Building

The Blomme building (named after its architect Adrien Blomme), also known as the "Wielemans tower", is one of the few examples of modernist industrial architecture in Belgium, and was built in 1931 for the Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery.[2]

References
  1. "Wiels - Center for Contemporary Art". BrusselsMuseums.be. Retrieved 2017-02-17.
  2. "Gallery Wiels". ArtRabbit. Retrieved 2017-02-17.
  3. Rachel Donadio (2015-07-17). "Brussels Making a Strong Bid for Art". The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-02-17.
  4. "Dirk Snauwaert - hisk". hisk.edu. Hisk. Retrieved December 17, 2020.
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