Four winter season exhibitions

S.M.A.K. is pleased to present four new exhibitions to enter its winter season. Opening jointly on Friday, November 28, each exhibition, through its distinctive lens, examines how art navigates, questions, and reframes the political and social urgencies of our time.

Resistance. The Power of the Image
November 29, 2025–March 8, 2026

As part of EUROPALIA ESPAÑA, S.M.A.K. presents Resistance. The Power of the Image in which twenty Spanish artists examine the role of the image in the fight for democratic values. The group exhibition investigates how artists have used art as a means of protest to demand new rights and expose abuses—an activism that dates back to the Spanish War (1936–39) and the overthrow of the Second Republic. A crucial moment was the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris, where denunciations of the horrors of the Spanish War gained an international platform through diverse artistic forms. Picasso created ‘Guernica’ for the occasion, a painting that remains an enduring symbol of resistance and art’s role therein.

The exhibition invites visitors to take a renewed look at what democracy means, why it is necessary, and the challenges it faces. At the same time, it provides space for critical reflection on how we, as a society, shape our identity.

Artists: Carlos Aires, Xavier Arenós, Pilar Aymerich, Alán Carrasco, Colita, Lúa Coderch, Eli Cortiñas, Daniel G. Andujar, Ana García-Pineda, Eulàlia Grau, Núria Güell, Agustín Ibarrola, José Ortega, Diego del Pozo Barriuso, Joan Rabascall, Josep Renau, María Ruido, Avelino Sala, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Darío Villalba.
Curators: Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo and Sam Steverlynck.

Narcisse Tordoir: Fake Barok
November 29, 2025–May 3, 2026

S.M.A.K. is staging a collection presentation centred on the recently donated work Fake Barok (2016-2017) by the Belgian artist Narcisse Tordoir. This monumental installation interrogates the relationship between art, politics, and reality, and demonstrates the groundbreaking way in which Tordoir approaches painting. For this exhibition, the artist presents ‘Fake Barok’ together with mostly recent works, many of which function as ‘objects’ rather than traditional “paintings’. Together, they form a cross-section of Tordoir’s practice and create a unique hybrid between a collection display and an artist-curated solo exhibition.
Curators: Narcisse Tordoir and Thibaut Verhoeven .

Aziz Hazara: Bow Echo
November 29, 2025–May 3, 2026

Recently donated to the museum, Bow Echo (2019) is a powerful five-part video installation by the Afghan artist Aziz Hazara, showing five boys braving strong winds as they climb a huge rock. At the summit, they play kazoos in an almost ceremonial way, their fragile notes contrasting with the harsh weather to form a poetic metaphor for war-torn Afghanistan. In this work, Hazara exposes underlying power structures and reveals how a traumatized population attempts to cope with conflict and oppression. Within this context, the kazoo resounds both as a rarefied, chilling soundtrack over occupied territory and as a powerful call for individual expression, hope, and life.
Curator: Thibaut Verhoeven.

Ten years of S.M.A.K. Moves
November 29, 2025–May 3, 2026

For ten years, S.M.A.K. Moves has brought people and art closer together. To celebrate its anniversary, this participatory platform takes over four museum rooms for an exhibition centred on doing, thinking, and experiencing together. Two “In the Spotlight” spaces host alternating partners who present work, run activities, or use the museum as their workspace. Furthermore, the exhibition features a personal selection of collection works compiled by the volunteers of Cultureghem’s cultural committee (Anderlecht). Finally, the pavilion by Nico Dockx, VOET Architecture, and Studio Zuidervaart hosts activities and reflections on a decade of S.M.A.K. Moves throughout the exhibition. Between the rooms, flags from Road of Change—an educational project inviting young people to engage with the realities of displacement—flutter overhead.
Coordinators: Aline Van Nereaux and Hoa Mai Lambrechts.