The Flemish government's controversial decision to close Belgium's oldest contemporary art museum has sparked fierce opposition from artists, museum staff, and cultural advocates across the country. The Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), which opened in 1985 as Belgium's first institution dedicated to contemporary art, will have its entire collection transferred to a rival museum in Ghent as part of a sweeping reorganization of the region's cultural landscape.
Under the new plan, which will be implemented between next year and 2028, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent will be transformed into the Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art. M HKA's impressive collection of approximately 8,000 artworks will be moved to Ghent, while the Antwerp building will be converted into an arts center featuring exhibitions, artist studios, residencies, and other programming similar to the Kunsthalle model popular in other European countries.
The announcement triggered immediate backlash from the museum's leadership and staff. Herman De Bode, M HKA's board chairman for eight years, resigned the day after the plan was announced, calling the government's decision "too crazy for words" and "criminal." In an interview with Art Dependence Magazine, De Bode emphasized that the museum's unique character is deeply rooted in its Antwerp location, stating, "You can relocate some works of art, but you don't really move anything with that. You cannot export the avant-garde to Ghent. It's Antwerp."
M HKA employees published a scathing open letter addressed to Flemish Culture Minister Caroline Gennez, describing the plan as "insane" and criticizing the lack of consultation with the museum. The letter, which includes a link to a petition titled "Call for Mass Protest: Keep the M HKA collection in Antwerp!" had gathered more than 2,600 signatures by Wednesday. Staff members expressed feeling "completely surprised," "shocked," and "insulted" by the plans and the secretive manner in which they were developed.
The museum restructuring is part of a broader "thorough reform" of Flanders' museum landscape, aimed at creating what officials describe as a more logical distribution of the region's public collections. Minister Gennez defended the changes, telling Belga News Agency that while Flemish museums should be proud of their collections, "more cooperation is needed" to achieve scaling up and internationalization goals. She also suggested that M HKA had been "struggling with its role as a museum for some time," a claim the museum staff vehemently disputed in their open letter.
The timing of the closure announcement compounds the controversy, coming just one week after the government canceled plans for a new €130 million ($151 million) M HKA building that had been in development for nearly a decade. The ambitious project had gone through multiple phases, including a 2020 architecture competition that was abandoned and a new competition launched in 2023. In February, the museum had announced that two architectural firms, Bovenbouw Architectuur and Christ & Gantenbein, had been selected to design the new facility.
M HKA has built an international reputation for its cutting-edge exhibition program, featuring both solo artist surveys and innovative group shows. Recent exhibitions have included solo presentations of work by Nástio Mosquito (2024), Dorothy Iannone (2023), and Anthea Hamilton (2022), as well as the acclaimed 2024 exhibition "The Lives of Animals." The museum is currently hosting the Kyiv Biennial 2025 and a survey of Pauline Curnier Jardin, with a major Nicola L. retrospective planned for 2026.
Prominent Belgian artist Luc Tuymans joined the chorus of criticism, expressing his anger over the decision and emphasizing M HKA's historical significance. "We must not forget that the M HKA was the very first museum of contemporary art in Belgium," Tuymans said. "The whole neighborhood was also built around it. This is a real loss of face for an important city like Antwerp."
In their open letter, museum employees defended M HKA's unique role in the cultural landscape, describing it as "a unique place in Flanders where the critical and social potential of contemporary visual art is fully expressed." They argued that the museum serves as "a space for reflection, imagination, and dialogue" rather than merely "a showcase or tourist attraction," and that the collection transfer fails to consider "the expertise already acquired, the connection between the collection, context, and audience."
The museum reorganization creates three institutional clusters, each led by a "beacon" museum. For contemporary art, the new Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art in Ghent will serve as the beacon, absorbing S.M.A.K.'s existing collection of 3,000 works from the postwar era to today. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp will oversee the Hof van Busleyden Museum in Mechelen and Gaasbeek Castle in Lennik, while Mu.ZEE in Ostend will manage the Roger Raveel Museum in Zulte and the FeliX ArtEco Museum in Drogenbos.
Government officials maintain that the restructuring will allow museums to "complement each other" and grow "into museums as described in the new international definition of ICOM" (International Council of Museums). Funds saved from canceling the new M HKA building will partially support the transitions and future operations of Flemish museums, including renovations to M HKA's current building for its new role as an arts center. However, critics argue that this dramatic reshuffling will destroy decades of institutional knowledge and severing the vital connection between Antwerp's contemporary art scene and its flagship cultural institution.
