Music and urban arts in Brussels, design sales in Antwerp, concerts in Liège, and more. See you there!

Concert: Panda Bear at Botanique

Thursday, 5 March Brussels

Noah Benjamin Lennox is not only known as the co-founder of the great Animal Collective, but also under the moniker Panda Bear, his experimental-meets-electronic solo project, which exists since the end of the 90s. With 2007’s “Person Pitch” he landed his personal solo breakthrough, scoring raving reviews and “Album of the year” awards. This January Lennox released his fifth solo effort “Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper” which you can discover this Thursday live on stage at Botanique.

Festival: Lezarts Urbains

From 5 to 28 March Brussels

Throughout the month of March art festival Lezarts Urbains celebrates for the second time all kinds of aspects of urban hip hop culture, offering a varied program from concerts and workshops to dance shows and poetry slams. Don’t miss the screening of “Graffiti Dixit Art” at Cinema Aventure on 25 March, a fascinating film about New York street artist Quik, the debut of French filmmaker Cécile Gamard who will be present at the event.

Pop-up-bar launch: Stulp

Friday, 6 March, 22h00 Antwerp

This Friday a brand new pop-up-bar opens its doors in Antwerp for the very first time: Stulp, a temporary creative hub aiming at bringing together artists, art enthusiasts and everyone else for exhibitions, film screenings, performances, workshops, parties, flea markets and more. It’s located just next to the Badboot and calls a terrace overlooking the water its own. Check it out at the opening night this weekend wit Farid, Deloin, Benni Booi, Deegee Prinsez and Boatman behind the decks.

Shopping: Stock sale at Espoo

From 5 to 7 March Antwerp

Antwerp interior and lifestyle shop Espoo, founded in 2009, has an obvious penchant for Nordic design with a fantastic selection of Scandinavian furniture and objects. Featured brands include Hay, Muuto, Sandqvist and more. It’s quite pricey sometimes, but this week there’s a special stock sale offering discounts up to 70%!

Music: Opening week at Reflektor

From 4 to 6 March Liège

Things are moving in Liège: Although musically the city has always been on the map with major festivals like Les Ardentes or Transardentes, a major concert venue has been missing. Reflektor (most probably a reference to the latest Arcade Fire opus) opens its doors for the very first time this week, aiming at filling the gap. The programmed inauguration concerts located at the former Sauvenière swimming pool are promising: amongst others, Belgian shooting star Oscar and the Wolf and Leuven’s Uphigh Collective will take the brand new stage in the coming days.

One-day-expo: Forms of Togetherness (and Separation) at Wiels

Friday, 6 March, 19h00 Brussels

On Friday eve six different artists take part in an exhibition of a special kind at Brussels’ Wiels. All contributions take narrative or performative shapes and are (with a few exceptions) presented by the artists themselves, exploring closely related themes such as cultural communities, minorities, radicalism and more. Featuring works by Charif Benhelima, Hana Miletic, Younes Baba-Ali, Saddie Choua, Clarisse Hahn and Natacha Nisic.

Exhibition opening: Esther de Graaf and Sandra Plantiveau at Greylight Projects

Thursday, 5 March, 18h00 Brussels

Greylight Projects, an artist-run initiative with branches in both Brussels and the Dutch town of Hoensbroek, provides workspaces for artists as well as hosting exhibitions covering all disciplines of contemporary art. This week there’s a new show kicking off juxtaposing the works of Groningen-based artist Esther de Graaf and Sandra Plantiveau from Brussels. While de Graaf focuses on sculptures and installations, Plantiveau’s practice is centered around drawings at the crossroads between reality and fiction.

Record store opening: För presents Escalade

Thursday, 5 March, 18h00 Brussels

We’ve already gushed enough about Brussels’ concept store För (who just launched a beautiful new website including an online shop by the way), but we can’t get around mentioning it again this week, when Escalade kicks off, a vinyl pop-up store located in För’s basement space dedicated to record collectors, vintage hi-fi enthusiasts and beatmakers. The music shop is managed by creative collective Escalade, which carefully curates the music selection covering all genres from techno and disco to garage and hip-hop.

Exhibition opening: Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttir at Trampoline Gallery

Friday, 6 March, 18-21h00 Antwerp

Born in Iceland, Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttir has left her magical home country to settle down in Belgian Ghent, where she studied art at the renowned KASK. Antwerp’s Trampoline Gallery now presents a captivating solo show of the young artist, who often slips into different roles in order to approach certain issues in a more emotional way. The main elements of Sigurðardóttir’s practice are connections, icons, scenarios and colors, creating a visual world combining painting, video, sculpture, and performance.

Club launch: La Vilaine

Friday, 6 March, 22h00 Brussels

So many launches this week: another one is happening in the center of Brussels, where La Vilaine joins the capital’s nightlife scene this Friday, taking over the former venue of Mr Wong. According to the founders the concept is dedicated to “old school electronic music from the 80s, 90s and 00s”. It hosts different club nights from Wednesday through Saturday with the occasional gay tea dance finishing off the weekend on Sundays. The inaugural edition welcomes Dutch-born Intergalactic Gary behind the decks as well as J-Error, who blends classic and contemporary electro.

Exhibition opening: Grace Schwindt and Dirk Braeckman at Zeno X

Sunday, 8 March, 15-18h00 Antwerp

Two parallel solo expos take off this Sunday at Antwerp’s Zeno X, one of Belgium’s leading galleries. “Locating Live-ness” unites a selection of works by German-born, London-based artist Grace Schwindt, whose complex, multidisciplinary practice incorporates film, performances, drawings and sculptures. The exhibition signifies the Belgian premiere of Schwindt’s most recent film “Only a Free Individual Can Create a Free Society”, examining radical left-wing social-politics in Germany in the 1960s and ’70s. “1/1” offers a glimpse into the vast oeuvre of celebrated Belgian photographer Dirk Braeckman, whose mostly black-and-white images are characterized by his darkroom experimentations focusing on the materiality of the pictures and modifying them in a way that makes reproducibility impossible; contradicting one of photography’s most inherent principles.

Cover photo Margaux Nieto