With 767,355 visitors in 2015, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (KMSKB) are in the top 100 of most visited art museums in the world. In the recently published report of The Art Newspaper, this record number of visitors ranks the KMSKB in 82nd place worldwide. The KMSKB is also in the top 50 of most visited art museums in Europe. In Belgium they remain the number one cultural institution.
© Philippe Van Gelooven 2015
The KMSKB recorded – with its 767,355 visitors – an increase of the number of visitors by 12.5% compared to 2014 (682,130 visitors). The success of the temporary exhibitions, an extensive range of events and the dynamic collections explain this extraordinary number of visitors.
Two important temporary exhibitions highlight KMSKB's programme in 2015. The Marc Chagall retrospective with over 200 works from the largest museums in the world (MoMa, Tate, MET, Centre Pompidou, …) and the exhibition '2050. A Brief History of the Future'. For this last one, more than 70 contemporary artists, via their paintings, images, photos, installations and digital works of art, engaged in a dialogue with the public about the large societal issues of our time and their vision of the future.
However, 2016 also promises to be an outstanding year. The programme includes:
- From Floris to Rubens. Master drawings from a Belgian private collection (until 15.05.2016)
- Andres Serrano. Uncensored Photographs (until 21.08.2016)
- Andres Serrano: Denizens of Brussels (until 30.04.2016)
- Bruegel, Unseen Masterpieces (until 2020)
- David Altmejd: Giants (until 21.08.2016)
- Hubert (until 17.04.2016)
The KMSKB contain over 20,000 works of art in various prestigious collections: the Old Masters Museum, the Modern Museum, the Wiertz Museum, the Meunier Museum, the Magritte Museum and the new Fin-de-Siècle Museum.
The collections reflect the history of visual arts – painting, sculpture, drawings – from the 15th century until today: Flemish Primitives, Pieter Bruegel, Dirk Bouts, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacques Jordaens, Jacques Louis David, Auguste Rodin, James Ensor, Paul Gauguin, Ferdinand Khnopff, Henry Moore, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers, Jan Fabre, etc. Something for everyone.
