Art X Gender: Seeing Ourselves in the Masters’ House

In a city as culturally rich as Brussels, it’s thrilling to see established institutions turn their critical lens inward. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB) is doing just that with its new exhibition, “Art X Gender”, an essential part of their ongoing “Collections in Question” series. Running from November 19, 2025, to April 19, 2026, this display doesn’t just show art; it invites us to fundamentally question the stories we’ve been told about gender.

The premise is straightforward but powerful: to examine how traditional gender stereotypes—the “virile, brutal man” and the “gentle, maternal, nurturing woman” , or even the “temptress, sinner, even guilty one” —are “deeply rooted in the collective imagination and conveyed through art”. In a dedicated room in the Old Masters Museum , the exhibition confronts these clichés head-on with nearly 30 works spanning the 16th to the 20th century , from Lucas Cranach to Roger Raveel.

For the queer community, this is more than an academic exercise. It’s an opportunity to see the foundations of binary thinking shaken inside the very halls that have long preserved it.

The curators, Géraldine Barbery and Audrey Lasserre, haven’t just focused on cisgender, binary representations. They’ve crafted a space for dialogue, featuring thought-provoking questions on a large wall frieze, such as: «Is an assertive woman necessarily aggressive?» en «Is creative genius always male?». These questions encourage us to reflect, exchange perspectives, and challenge preconceived ideas about gender and artistic creation.

The exhibition aims to look “differently” at works by artists like Fernand Khnopff, Pierre Bonnard, and even highlights women artists from the collections who have long “remained in the shadows” , such as Anna Staritsky, whose Bathers is exhibited for the first time after restoration.

Curatorial Ambition: Defamiliarizing the Gaze

The show is fundamentally about deconstruction and challenging norms. The entire initiative is part of the museum’s ambition to become “anchored in society, more open, and more aware of the narratives it conveys”.

Co-curator Audrey Lasserre highlights the core of the project:

“Art x Gender explores how gender stereotypes influence the creation and reception of artworks. Through both the selected works and its participatory design, this display proposes a ‘defamiliarization’ of the gaze, within a museum where one learns to see differently.”

Her co-curator, Géraldine Barbery, beautifully frames the wider context for KET’s readers:

“Yet art can also serve as a space of protest, subversion, or even revolution. Many works challenge boundaries, disrupt codes, and defy expectations, opening the door to new narratives and possibilities.”

This is the key for us. When we see the rigid boxes of the past questioned, we create space for our own, more fluid, and authentic realities to be seen and celebrated in the present. It helps fulfill the hope expressed by Minister Vanessa Matz: that young people can “dream of themselves not only as muses, mothers, lovers, or beloveds, but as creators, workers, thinkers, explorers – free to invent their own stories“.

Go see the show. Take a friend. Look at the Old Masters, and ask yourself: Where are we in this picture, and how can we redraw the frame?

Art X Gender : 19.11.2025 > 19.04.2026

• Locatie: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium | Old Masters Museum
• Address: 3 Rue de la Régence | 1000 Brussels
• Admission: Included in the Old Masters ticket
• Website & Tickets: www.fine-arts-museum.be