BRUSSELS.- The exhibition programme of 2025 starts with the powerful and colourful show When We See Us. This exhibition forms a vast kaleidoscope that reflects a century of Black figurative painting and presents over 150 works by 120 artists from Africa and the African diaspora. Pan-African subjectivity, afro-consciousness and self-representation, underpinned by Black joy, take centre-stage.

Bozar also presents, for the first time, a large-scale solo exhibition featuring the work of Berlinde De Bruyckere. The work of this Belgian artist focuses on the human condition in all its duality: suffering and love, sorrow and comfort, life and death. In Khorós, De Bruyckere presents a selection of her works of the past 25 years, including new creations, in dialogue with works by both historical and contemporary artists, from Lucas Cranach to Pier Paolo Pasolini and Patti Smith.

Familiar Strangers explores recent changes in Eastern Europe from a Polish context. Showcasing over 30 works, each room immerses visitors in the unique world of a different artist, highlighting the richness and complexity of multiple, hybrid identities.

Suchan Kinoshita, winner of the BelgianArtPrize 2025, is invited to create and to present new work at Bozar.

Bozar Monumental is a new annual series of commissions specially made for the Horta Hall. German artist Michael Beutler is the first artist invited this summer to explore Bozar’s iconic architecture through a site-specific installation.

After the summer, a large solo exhibition is dedicated to the late American artist John Baldessari, in parallel to the Europalia Festival Spain where Francisco de Goya and his legacy will be in the spotlight.

When We See Us
A Century of Black Figuration in Painting
07.02.25 → 10.08.25 (Ravenstein Circuit)

How have artists from Africa and its vast diaspora depicted daily life over the past century? Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, and her team have sought to answer this question with a landmark exhibition. Bozar proudly presents this vast kaleidoscope of Black figurative painting from the 1920s to the present day. 

Inspired by Ava DuVernay's series When They See Us, the exhibition title "When We See Us" reflects a fundamental perspective exploring Black self-representation and global Black subjectivities. Over 150 works by 120 artists are grouped into six themes: "The Everyday”, "Joy & Revelry”, "Repose”, "Sensuality”, "Spirituality”, and "Triumph and Emancipation”. 

By focusing on these themes, the exhibition offers a rich, nuanced view of Black life and thought, emphasising the resilience, essence, and political charge of Black joy. It highlights relationships between artists and artworks across geographies and generations, fostering a deeper understanding of the complex and underrepresented genealogy rooted in African and Black modernities. When We See Us encourages discussion on Black liberation and intellectual movements and celebrates experiences from Africa and the African diaspora contributing to the art historical canon. 

Berlinde De Bruyckere
Khorós
21.02.25 → 31.08.25 (Royal Circuit)

Bozar presents a major solo exhibition of Berlinde De Bruyckere (b. 1964, Ghent) for the first time. De Bruyckere draws on various sources of inspiration: Christian iconography, classical mythology, the works of the Flemish masters and cultural lore. She introduces these influences into a contemporary context: the violence that surrounds us, the images of human suffering on a global scale, but also the beauty and hope for change.

For Bozar, De Bruyckere creates an exhibition as a mind map conceived specifically for the historic halls designed by Victor Horta. The show features a blend of older and newer works, woven together with artistic dialogues that include work by artists as diverse as Lucas Cranach and Patti Smith.

This exhibition is the first in the series titled Conversation Pieces, in which artists’ work is presented in dialogue as a way to offer new perspectives on their practice.

Familiar Strangers
The Eastern Europeans
14.03.25 → 29.06.25 (BN Galleries)

Familiar Strangers. The Eastern Europeans is an exhibition of contemporary art reflecting on recent changes in Eastern Europe from a Polish context. It highlights the richness and complexity of representing multiple, hybrid identities in a region that was long considered to be culturally homogenous, even if this was never truly the case.

The exhibition focuses on the lives of diasporas and minorities, the feminist resistance, the impact of forced displacement and migration, and the long-lasting consequences of serfdom in the region. It explores tensions between the self and the other; between the local and the transcultural; between Eastern and Western Europe; tensions that forge hybrid identities. 

Each gallery of the exhibition circuit is inhabited by the world of a different artist. Together they form a constellation of over 30 works, including paintings, sculptures, videos, films, installations, and textiles. These pieces tell the stories of "familiar strangers": from the Roma minority to the Vietnamese diaspora, from Byelorussian and Ukrainian artists and activists in Warsaw to the history of the Polish-Jewish co-existence.

Curated by Joanna Warsza, an international curator originating from Warsaw and living in Berlin, the exhibition is designed by Aleksandra Wasilkowska and features the works by Assaf Gruber, Zuzanna Hertzberg, Rara Kamińska, Jasmina Metwaly, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Natalia LL, Ngo Van Tuong, Open Group, Janek Simon, Shadow Architecture, Jana Shostak and Mikołaj Sobczak.

From January to June 2025, Bozar will shine a spotlight on Poland with a rich and multidisciplinary programme, featuring music, cinema, literature, and this major group exhibition.

BelgianArtPrize 2025
Suchan Kinoshita
24.04.25 → 29.06.25 (Antichambres Circuit)

Suchan Kinoshita received the BelgianArtPrize 2025 and is invited to create and to present a new work at Bozar.

Suchan Kinoshita (b.1960, Tokyo) lives and works in Brussels. She studied rhythmics and later contemporary music theatre at the music academy in Cologne from 1981onwards. Her work has been shown in several international exhibitions.

Kinoshita’s works deal with combinations of several disciplines. Throughout her oeuvre, one can find elements from theatre and experimental music, two fields in which she was active for some time. Duration (or time) and a consciousness of the position of the viewer are two important aspects in her work, which always proposes that we read between the lines.

Kinoshita considers her practice as a space where different works interact not only with each other, but also with the viewer. How these different roles are taken by different players is something she continues exploring.

Bozar Monumental
Michael Beutler
27.06.25 → 31.08.25 (Horta Hall)

Bozar Monumental is a new annual series of site-specific commissions made for the Horta Hall. One national or international artist is invited each summer to explore Bozar’s iconic architecture through a large-scale installation.

Launching the series this year is German artist Michael Beutler, who is known for creating imposing structures through the playful and innovative re-use of unexpected materials.

Europalia España
Francisco de Goya
08.10.25 → 11.01.26 (Royal Circuit)

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) achieved fame with monumental portraits of the upper classes and traditional scenes of popular festivals. But also, in stark contrast, with his fierce, gripping depictions of the injustices, abuses and horrors of his time.

EUROPALIA ESPAÑA's main exhibition brings together over 100 engravings and paintings by Goya from collections around the world, in dialogue with works by his contemporaries as well as by artists from more recent generations, right up to the present day . The exhibition explores the formal, conceptual and ideological legacy of Goya, whose work has played a major role in shaping the collective imaginary of what is perceived as ‘Spanish’, and continues to intrigue, move and inspire.

John Baldessari
19.09.25 → 04.01.26 (Ravenstein Circuit)

John Baldessari (1931- 2020) was a giant of contemporary art. The first major show since the artist's death in 2020, this exhibition proposes his work as essential viewing for anyone seeking to understand the avant-garde of the second half of the 20th century. While it includes work from different moments of his practice, the exhibition focuses on Baldessari's mature period: from the 1980s, a time of profound oscillation in the art system, to the decades on either side of the turn of the century.

From his origins in Los Angeles, exponent of a unique culture that united the suburban and the metropolitan, Baldessari's work speaks to a world profoundly different from the one in which the artist lived. The exhibition aims to explore how Baldessari's work resonates in the consciousness of new generations of world citizens who, born digital, are independent of the visual conventions of the past. It also aims to renew the fascination that the playful work of this Californian artist has long exercised on art lovers of the 20th century avant-garde.