Magritte Museum, Brussels

This was the biggest disappointment of my life. I see that most of the people leaving good reviews say that Magritte is their favorite artist - that doesn’t mean this museum is good. The curators made absolutely no effort to organize or make Magritte’s work understandable. Chronological order (this is not even true to the last room), very short biography at the beginning and that’s it, no concept whatsoever. They have to exhibit a lot of photographs, letters, and other texts that are somehow related to the artist because there are not many really famous or recognizable pieces of his work. This wouldn’t be a problem at all if they were explained or at least translated to English. A lot of the times they don’t even bother to translate the titles, there’s just three almost identical French labels instead! A good curator can make an enjoyable museum experience out of the smallest, most insignificant collections of art - a very good example is the Dalí Paris. Here, the interiors are outdated, the lighting is awful, there are reflections and glares on all the paintings but the lack of effort is the most annoying. Their only luck is that Magritte is such an interesting artist that almost anyone can enjoy his works just by looking at them. If you want a deeper understanding of his motivations, (Belgian) surrealism, or even his life, THIS IS NOT THE PLACE.

Avoid going during the weekend if possible. The fact that we had booked a ticket with an entry time didn't matter as we'd still have to queue for ~1 hour. Horrible lighting, minimum description, not exactly engaging routes.. But hey, it's Magritte, so we ended up having a fairly good time anyway. And great souvenir shop.