American Friends of Fine Arts Museum Belgium. Re: Magritte Museum to support Emily Mae Smith’s exhibition…donated by Benjamin Khakshour and Justine Freeman 

The Royal Museums’ collections trace the history of the visual arts from the 15th to the 21st centuries.

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) are a federal scientific institution that is part of the Federal Public Service for Science Policy Programming. They consist of various museum entities distinct by the nature of their exhibits and located at different sites in the city of Brussels: the Old Masters Museum, the Modern Museum, the Wiertz Museum, the Meunier Museum and the Magritte Museum. The Museums’ collections (20.000 art works) trace the history of the visual arts – painting, sculpture and drawing – from the 15th to the 21st centuries. They preserve the works of the Flemish Primitives, of Pieter Bruegel, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacques Jordaens, Jacques Louis David, Auguste Rodin, James Ensor, Paul Gauguin, Fernand Khnopff, Henry Moore, Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Marcel Broodthaers and many others.



The core missions of the Royal Museums of Fine arts of Belgium include an international center for scientific research and want to share their permanent collections with the widest possible audience through a program of activities, numerous exhibitions, lectures, tours, workshops, ... They also  aim at preserving, controling and enriching the cultural heritage of the Belgian State.



The museum wants also to be an inclusive an polyphonic space for critical dialogue about the past and the future. They work in active partnership with diverse local and international communities and stakeholders, aiming at contributing to human dignity, diversity, global equity and human wellbeing.The Educational and audience engagement department offers guided tours, lectures and workshops for young and old, either individually or in groups. In addition, the Made to Measure programmes offer guided tours tailored for groups of people with disabilities or special needs. The Collection and Research Department works closely together wilt Belgian and foreign universities for the exchange of art works with other museums and research on artists, art movements and their impact on society. Alongside the development of national and international projects, the Museums produce scientific and large public publications and make various research tools available to researchers and the general public. The Museums’ library (specializing in art history), the Archives of Contemporary Art in Belgium, the Museums’ Archives and the Museums’ Digital Service are used by Belgian and foreign researchers and students, but are accessible also to all art lovers.



Currently there is an show 100 Years of International Surrealism (21 February - 21th July 2024) in close collaboration with the Centre Pompidou (Paris).  An immersion in surrealist poetry, dream, the labyrinth, metamorphosis, the unknown and the subconscious, led by the great names of surrealists, from Max Ernst to Giorgio de Chirico, not forgetting Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Jane Graverol, Dorothea Tanning, Man Ray, Leonor Fini, etc.



From 11th October 2024 till 16th February 2025 two exhibitions are planned: Drafts from Rubens till Khnopff. This exhibition offers a new perspective on the art of sketching by iconic artists such as Rogier van der Weyden, Rembrandt, Rubens, Magritte, and many others  (from the 15th to the beginning of the 20th century). The second exhibition takes place in the Magritte Museum and presents a dialogue between the surrealist artist Magritte and the young American painter EMILY MAE SMITH (°1979 Austin, Texas). She lives and works in New York. The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Petzel Gallery (New York) and rodolphe janssen Gallery (Brussels), with the support of Galerie Perrotin (Paris). The works on show come from private collections in Belgium, England, the USA and Brazil. In her 37 works, the young artist features an anthropomorphic brush character, inspired by Disney's Fantasia (1940). It becomes her avatar, referring simultaneously to the painter's brush, the household help's work object and the phallus, conferring a sexual dimension to her paintings. Her work is also based on a keen sense of image construction and a taste for visual trickery, also characteristic for Magritte's work.



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