Final weekend for Brussels' MIMA museum ahead of permanent closure
The MIMA museum in Brussels is permanently closing on Sunday after almost nine years.
The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art opened in 2016 in the former Belle-Vue brewery alongside the canal in Molenbeek. Since then, 17 exhibitions have taken place, attracting more than 400,000 visitors.
Now the curtain is falling. Sunday is the final day of the Multitude exhibition of street art by Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils. The museum cancelled two other exhibitions planned in October, by Italian-Japanese duo Lolo & Sosaku and Brussels-based collective Crafteke.
"It may sound like a Belgian joke, unfortunately it’s not"
MIMA had been considering expansion last year. However, it suffered a sudden drop of more than 50 per cent in visitor numbers after Quai du Hainaut was unexpectedly closed to traffic in July for repairs.
“It may sound like a Belgian joke, unfortunately it’s not,” the museum said in a press release announcing the closure in October.
'No longer viable'
“This past April, we were still making plans for the future, including an extension project, but the road leading to the MIMA being at risk of collapsing into the canal has forced the museum to close ... With repairs estimated to take over a year or two, and no certainty of a return to normal, continuing this adventure is no longer viable.”
MIMA is privately owned and earned 50 per cent of its revenue from ticket sales. The remainder came from an annual crowdfunding campaign and from grants and private lenders.
© PHOTO BELGIAN FREELANCE
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