Although museums – especially those devoted to contemporary art – have never been so popular, they remain notably absent from public debate on most key current issues. To mark its 10th anniversary, WIELS proposes The Absent Museum, conceived as a ‘blueprint for a museum of contemporary art for the capital of Europe’. This speculative exhibition and its accompanying publication address the challenges that both museums and artists face today. The participating artists all come from the wider region, from Amsterdam to Paris, from Cologne and Düsseldorf to London, with Brussels at the crossroads. In Brussels, as in many metropolitan areas, discussions around the creation of a new museum focus on a building or a collection, but avoid a fundamental question: How can they represent the current tensions between neoliberalism and globalisation, and their effects on individual voices and communities alike?

Included in the publication are original contributions by 47 contemporary and historical artists, translating their works to the book’s pages and setting forth certain directions for the future. Divided into two sections, in parallel with the exhibition’s dual retrospective and prospective focus, the pages devoted to the works on display feature both curatorial entries and artist’s texts. Editor and artistic director Dirk Snauwaert, who has been at the helm of WIELS since its inception, presents a critical account on the stakes of the art centre’s role. Two fellow museum directors, Charles Esche of Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum and Manuel Borja-Villel of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, act as respondents in their respective essays.