Welcome to the chapel of colours! Six thoughts on MIMA, as it opens its doors in Brussels

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So: MIMA. Brussels’ new museum devoted to urban art, hoping to attract 30.000 visitors in its first year. Hailed as a beacon of hope for Molenbeek. Six thoughts. One: for years authorities in Brussels have been talking about a museum of modern/contemporary art, and it’s still not there. While four people just decide to start their own museum, aiming for a young audience? You just have to love them for it. Two: Millennium Iconoclast Museum Of Art? Horrible name. MIMA it will be. Three: can urban art be contained in the walls of a museum? Two of the people behind MIMA have been running Alice Gallery for over ten years now and they’ve proven that it can be done. Four: of course, the buzz is great, but can MIMA become a really interesting project in the long-term, artistically? The future will have to tell. Five: can MIMA save Molenbeek? Of course not. That’s too heavy a burden. Six: just that explosion of colours by Maya Hayuk alone is worth the trip (plus the view from the rooftop terrace, of course). So: check it out.

Squirrels, bats and hedgehogs: Roa’s cabinet of curiosities (Bodson-Emelinckx, Brussels)

It was an unusual sight, as I entered the gallery on that Saturday afternoon: the room was crowded. That alone is no small feat for an artist, cause it happens all too often, on my Saturday gallery tours, that I find myself alone in a room, facing those works of art. But hey, we’re talking about Roa, the notorious and mysterious Belgian street artist, whose animals adorn walls all over the world, from Puerto Rico to London and Ghent. I for myself had only one question: would an artist used to working on such a big scale, be able to make an impression in the confined space of an art gallery?