Mima: Brussels temple to urban art brings light to the darkness

The capital of Europe will officially be a centre of cool when its newest museum opens this month. The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art (Mima) opens on 15 April, its grand unveiling delayed by three weeks because of the terrorist attacks in Brussels last month.

“Mima will further strengthen Brussels’ position as a tourist hub and expand its cultural opportunities, as well as its place as an innovative platform for contemporary art,” says the museum’s co-creator, Raphaël Cruyt. He is leading the project, alongside Alice van den Abeele –  with whom he owns the contemporary Brussels art gallery Alice – and artistic producers Michel and Florence de Launoit.

“Mima’s programme is very different from other art,” says Cruyt, who, like van den Abeele, is from a mixed Brussels and Flemish family. “The capital of Europe deserves a diversity of points of view, something unlike the image of the European project.”

The new museum is a cutting-edge centre that takes the public through the history of culture 2.0 – basically any art boosted by the internet. That might be street art, graphic design or illustration, punk rock or geek culture, film, visual art or performance, comics, tattoos or fashion design.

Culture 2.0 is often linked to the subculture and the subversive, and the museum’s permanent collection – including dozens of works by the likes of Banksy, Parra, Invader and Flanders’ Franck Vandenbroucke – reflects this.

In the words of Banksy, 2.0 art doesn’t require you to “go to college, drag round a portfolio, mail off transparencies to snotty galleries or sleep with someone powerful. All you need now is a few ideas and a broadband connection”.

Beyond the gallery

While focusing on plastic art, Mima also aims to break down barriers between art and other creative worlds. “Iconoclast” refers to the mobile and transferrable nature of culture.

Dutch artist Parra, who created the museum’s logo, reflects this goal of expanding art outside galleries: He is also a skateboarder, plastic artist, graphic artist, video clip producer and musician.

Mima, arguably Brussels’ first major contemporary art museum – the future of the city’s plan for a modern art museum located in the former Citroen garage uncertain – is certainly cause for excitement among artists and museum visitors. Housed in the former Belle Vue breweries along the canal in Molenbeek, next to the trendy Meininger hotel, which opened in 2013, it covers a massive 1,300 square-metres and eight exhibition halls across four floors.

The entrance, a big room with old red bricks and concrete beams, leads into the reception area and art shop and opens out into a video viewing space. The first three floors are dedicated to temporary exhibitions and the permanent collection, with the fourth reserved for workshops. You could also visit for the rooftop canal views alone or to eat in the brasserie.

Mima promises much more than just exhibitions, says Cruyt, with conferences, lectures, live music and children’s events planned. These artistic, educational and academic initiatives should boost the reputation of much-maligned Molenbeek, particularly in the wake of the Paris and now Brussels terrorist attacks.

Cruyt is reluctant to dwell on this, however, as he links the museum more to the canal zone associated with the town centre. “I think Molenbeek’s image will improve rapidly by itself,” he says, adding that it is the people of Brussels who have been wariest of the area for historical reasons. “The reality of the situation is the opposite of what is projected by the media. Molenbeek is poor but cosmopolitan and has a promising future with a growing social mix.”

Reaching out

For Cruyt, the possibility of a new museum at the Citroen garage or other possibilities being discussed, such as the return of the Museum of Fine Arts’ modern and contemporary collections could only increase his own museum’s appeal.

“Why should there be a conflict? Brussels is the European capital and deserves a wide range of projects,” he says. “The more museums it has, the sexier the city is.”

Cruyt also says there were no problems in setting up Mima with the Brussels-City authorities, some of whom had wanted to create a federal contemporary arts institution of their own. “There is no conflict, because Mima is a private initiative,” he says. “We had good feedback from all the Flemish and Brussels authorities.”

With links to Toerisme Vlaanderen and other local Flemish organisations, along with VisitBrussels, Mima will also be funded by the museum’s takings, private sponsors, friends of the museum and subsidies.

Mima may give a boost to Molenbeek and Brussels’ canal area in the same way as Tate Modern has rejuvenated a formerly less popular part of London along the Thames. However, Cruyt says revitalisation of this part of the municipality was already taking place. “I appreciate the parallel, and it’s true Mima will help the area,” he says. “But the development of the city is naturally going in this direction, Mima or not.”

He says the museum fits in perfectly with the Canal Plan rolled out by the Brussels-Capital Region – which aims to smarten up public spaces, breathe new life into the district, strengthen its diversity and put it on the map – thanks to the 30,000 visitors they expect to attract in the first year.

And the museum, which has a four-person team and four more running the shop and canteen, plans to link the canal district to the city centre via educational programmes for schools, associations and families, and will even do this literally with its own minibus.

Light up the city

Mima plans to stage two temporary exhibitions a year as it aims to bring 2.0 culture to a wider audience and wants to export its exhibitions abroad. The first show, City Lights, will see live music and extra activities on its opening weekend.

City Lights showcases five acclaimed American – mainly New York-based – artists: Maya Hayuk, Swoon, Momo and Faile, the artistic partnership of post-punk pop artists Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller. The idea behind the title – a nod to the classic Charlie Chaplin movie – is that these artists have lit up cities through urban projects or playful street art.

Archetypal figures of 2.0 art, the five have created four installations for the exhibition. Monumental abstract and psychedelic painter Hayuk, who started out photographing the New York punk rock scene in the 1990s and has worked with the Beastie Boys, will present a giant mural on one of the museum’s walls.

Swoon, who is heavily involved in humanitarian causes such as building sustainable houses in post-earthquake Haiti, has created a poetic installation made from paper. She is known for collective projects such as the rafts of “Swimming Cities of Serenissima”, which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2009.

Faile, whose work (pictured, top) is inspired by pop culture of the 1950s and ’60s and has graced institutions including Tate Modern and the New York City Ballet, will show off their pulp image creations, which they glue, paint and print in various media and frequently transfer to walls.

Finally, urban artist Momo – already known in Flanders for his psychedelic 3D street art presented in 2001 at Leuven’s Outomatic festival – will offer more urban digital art (pictured above).

City Lights, 15 April to 28 August, Mima, Quai du Hainaut 33, Brussels