Centrale also exhibits works outside its walls through various artistic projects
Q(ee)R Codes, Anna Raimondo
Q(ee)R Codes – New Boundaries BXL 1000 is part of a long-term nomadic art project initiated by artist Anna Raimondo in 2017. In Brussels, following the project BXL Universel II – multipli.city at Centrale for contemporary art in 2021, the project will be continued from 2025 to 2030, thanks to a commission from the City of Brussels and the alliance of several people and institutional and associative partners. More info.
SVEN ‘T JOLLE, (Casse-toi alors) pauvre canard ! (since 2024, permanent installation)
The sculpture Casse-toi alors pauvre canard ! by Belgian artist Sven ‘t Jolle represents Balthazar Scrooge McDuck, a character who symbolises the capitalist greed in Walt Disney’s Donald Duck comic strip as the archetype of the ultimate rich man that was often staged by the popular (protest) imagination. The anthropomorphic duck is shown sitting on a beam covered in tar and feathers, a punishment that was in use in the Middle Ages and in the Wild West as a sign of public humiliation and banishment from society. The title of the work is a variation of the remark of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy (“Casse-toi, pauv’ con”) to a man who refused to shake his hand. In line with his approach, Sven ‘t Jolle distorts several elements of popular and media culture with this surreal work that is both humorous and socially and systemically critical.
Work acquired by the City of Brussels in 2011 as part of the project Art in the City.
The artist is represented by the PLUS ONE Gallery (Antwerp) and Galerie Laurent Godin (Paris)
In partnership with 
piKuur (2020 > 2023)
For the first time, Centrale was partnering with a medical institution, the Marolles’ Hôpital Saint-Pierre, to offer an exhibition space outside its walls. Every two months, artist Vincen Beeckman was presenting new series of photographs, genuine X-rays of life in a hospital, while offering a reading of the institution’s history. The exhibition was continuously accessible in order to be seen by the hospital users. This truly made this project innovative and unique.
LE GRAND BANKET by FRANCOISE SCHEIN (2016 > 2023)
10 tables for the 10th anniversary of Centrale
10 tables, permanent installation (2016)
A participatory work
For many years, the Belgian artist Françoise Schein, a trained architect and town planner, has developed projects all over the world that make citizens central to the creative process. With these participatory works, she invites us to reconsider the very notion of community. Organised to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Centrale for contemporary art, Le Grand BanKet continues this quest to integrate art into society.
Living together
The starting point for Le Grand BanKet is the meal, food and sharing provisions. The shared meal makes us see the essential value of community, a value that individualist consumerism has driven us to forget. This concept is the extension of the artist’s work, which has focused on fundamental rights and the issues of cultural and geographical borders for more than thirty years.
Creating together
Nearly 120 participants therefore became the creators of a work comprised of ten ceramic tables. The group creative work took place through some ten workshops conducted with residents and those using the Centrale’s neighbourhood. With the involvement of two philosophers, the group embarked on a brainstorming session based on the question “what do we do when we eat together?” Françoise Schein then proposed that the participants paint their perfect plate, what they like to eat and describe the thoughts about this idea of “eating together” focused on this meal. Individualities were expressed: fish, vegetables, mussels and cakes made up unique and sometimes surrealist creations. Arranged around an intestine drawn by the artist, these plates create a dialogue in a composition that is both unified and disparate, like the participants. Le Grand BanKet, a metaphor for urban digestion, enabled neighbours of all ages and cultures to meet and talk, think and create through convivial artistic moments.
Le Grand BanKet
Such a participatory project, based on meeting and freedom of expression could only end in a blaze of glory with a festive event: a banquet! Designed as a work, orchestrated by the Brussels art group OKUP (“gathering” in Serbo-Croat), this feast brought together participants, residents and users of the neighbourhood, organisers and passers-by around the ten tables.
A lasting project for all
After the feast featuring the traditional “mussels and chips”, a nod to Marcel Broodthaers, the project really made sense with the table-works made available in the public space on Place Sainte-Catherine opposite the black tower, between Centrale and Centrale | lab.
The artist
Françoise Schein was born in Brussels where she studied Architecture at La Cambre. She then completed a master’s in “Urban Design & Architecture” in New York. She currently lives between France, Belgium and Brazil. She has been a professor at the Ecole Supérieure d’Arts et Médias in Caen since 2004. At the same time, she develops artistic work focusing on fundamental rights, the human rights declaration, geographic borders and city mapping. After creating metro stations in many cities (Paris, Lisbon, Stockholm, Brussels, etc.), she introduced participatory workshops in France, Brazil and Palestine resulting in works installed in the public space. In Brussels, in the Parvis de Saint-Gilles metro station, she created a work in 1992 entitled Dyades on the theme of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Radiocreation on the participatory work Le Grand BranKet (in French)
STREET ART
On the initiative of Karine Lalieux, Alderwoman of Culture of the City of Brussels, two urban artists with international reputation occupy the walls of Centrale for contemporary art with permanent artistic creations.
With these artistic projetcs, Centrale endorses the success of contemporary art form street art and also wants to give to this art form the widest possible audience. These projects also offer Centrale a window on the district and on the city of Brussels.
L’ATLAS
Permanent installation (since September 2013)
The first work of the artist L’ATLAS (France 1978) covers the outer wall (15 x 5 m) of the Centrale. It is a transcription of the name of the artist in a very specific form for him. This realization, made especially for the Centrale, draws its inspiration, typical of this artist, from the ancestral Arabic calligraphy, and in this way lays a link to the Brussels cultural diversity.
JEF AEROSOL
Permanent installation (since September 2013)
The second artist Jef AÉROSOL (France 1957) brings a work with a figurative character. The red arrow, the artist’s signature, draws a line under a staging (via template) of anonymous and familiar characters, such as Andy Warhol or Basquiat.
The two artists are represented in Brussels by Galerie Martine Ehmer, partner of this project.
