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Eminent creators have voiced strong opposition against what they call an “arbitrary reshaping” of the nation’s museum landscape, as the Flanders government aim to cut public spending by dismantling the nation’s most historic contemporary art gallery and transplanting its entire collection to a different urban center.

Leaders Condemn ‘Blatant Violations’ in Sector Shake-up

At a recent press conference in Antwerp, the directors of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), founded in 1985, decried what they termed the “flagrant illegalities” of the museum sector shake-up, a move due to be debated in Belgium’s parliament this Friday.

“Antwerp is Flanders’ biggest city, with a heritage as a home of the cutting-edge in Belgium,” said Luc Tuymans, an Antwerp-based artist broadly regarded as Belgium’s foremost contemporary creator.

“To demote a museum to an arts centre is simply insane. You cannot just take a collection of pieces and transfer it into another ecosystem, because that specific context does not exist,” Tuymans continued.

Surprise Move Scraps New Building, Moves Holdings

In October, the culture minister of the Flemish government cancelled the proposed development of a new, purpose-built €80m high-rise building to accommodate the institution, and revealed intentions to relocate its collection of approximately 8,000 artworks to Ghent’s Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Smak). This surprise move will in effect strip the Antwerp museum of its museum status.

The M HKA’s holdings features works by international artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Anish Kapoor and Marina Abramović.

“I do not accept that they could be removed from M HKA or otherwise put at risk as part of any structural reshuffling,” said British artist Kapoor in a message to the ministry.

Budget Pressures Motivate Cost-Cutting in Cultural Field

Belgium faces a budget deficit of 5.4 percent of its economic output, one of the largest in the European monetary union. The arts sector in particular is facing dramatic cuts, with budget-tightening policies also implying an uncertain future for the new Brussels Kanal museum.

Under the proposals of Flanders’ socialist culture minister, the museum landscape would be streamlined so that cultural holdings in the region are concentrated at three flagship institutions for historical, modern and contemporary art.

The region boasts a plethora of contemporary art museums: in addition to M HKA in Antwerp and Smak in Ghent, there is the Bruges museums in Bruges and Museum M in Leuven.

Auditors Questions Savings Rationale

If the planned reorganization would actually reduce expenses has been questioned by Belgium’s financial inspectorate. In a memorandum addressed to Gennez in October, it gave an unfavourable opinion on the plans, suggesting their impact on the budget would be “partial and incomplete”.

Although transplanting the museum’s permanent collection could reduce running expenses from approximately €8m to €5m, it is understood that in future the Antwerp museum would have to allocate funds to borrow works or purchase touring shows to draw audiences.

Ghent’s Smak, situated roughly an hour’s train ride from the Antwerp museum, is also believed to currently not have enough space to properly house M HKA’s holdings, and would need investment to expand its storage capacity.