Expo: our top 3 of the week

For a lot of galleries, the jolly season is a welcome break. But there are more than enough places open over the holidays to take your breath away with the imaginative power of images.

COVER ART
We have always been told not to judge a book by its cover. At the Comics Art Museum, they are enthusiastically ignoring that instructive rule. Not entirely unexpectedly, the focus of their "Cover Art" exhibition is on the brilliant illustrators who master the noble art of producing iconic, appealing, and readable covers. From the commercial genius of the advertising graphic artist Hergé and the inimitable, peculiar Idées noires of Franquin to the double entendres of Schuiten & Peeters and Hugo Pratt's visual Tango, all the way to Wide Vercnocke's magnificent muscles, Brecht Evens's pictorial polonaise and the intimate corporality of Judith Vanistendael: "Cover Art" casts a spotlight on the face of the modern comic strip.
> Comics Art Museum. > 28/05, Brussels

JOHAN VAN MULLEM
The Belgian painter Johan Van Mullem (born in 1959) is known for his mysterious portraits in shades of brown, orange, and grey. An emotional artist, he uses oil-based ink in his quest to depict the human soul. His most frequent colour combinations are purple and brown or black and orange. Portraits in hues that are often dark and warm seem to enter into a dialogue with the work of great portrait-painters of the past like Rubens or Caravaggio. But whereas those painters sought a realistic representation of reality, Van Mullem does not. Look again, however, and out of those casual brushstrokes emerges every time a face that often expresses a profound humanity.
> Museum van Elsene/Musée d'Ixelles. > 22/01, Ixelles

WILLIAM KLEIN: 5 CITIES
William Klein's raw, grainy, grungy black-and-white photography reflects perfectly the energy and the hustle and bustle of modern urban life. In the "5 Cities" exhibition, the Botanique presents a great many large-format photographs from Klein's first book of photographs, Life is Good & Good for You in New York (1956) and from later books that focused on Moscow, Rome, and Tokyo. Now based in Paris, the US photographer has a unique, dynamic style that has decisively changed the way we look at both photography and film.

In a career that has spanned more than 60 years, he has flouted just about every photographic convention and constantly reinvented himself. In the 1980s, Klein started to blow up and paint his contact prints. He showed the frames that immediately preceded and followed an iconic work, a lesson in modesty. A photograph can be a stroke of luck or just hard work. Klein also turned his hand to film. The experimental Broadway by Light (1958) showcases the iconic advertisements on Times Square. Don't miss this chance to see the work of a rebellious, committed photographer.
> Botanique. > 05/02, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode