‘Utterly Irrational’: Artists Decry Dismantling of Antwerp City’s Most Historic Contemporary Art Museum.
Leading artists have raised their voices in protest against what they label as an “arbitrary reshaping” of the nation’s museum landscape, as the Flanders government aim to cut public spending by dismantling the nation’s oldest modern art institution and relocating its complete holdings to a different urban center.
Directors Decry ‘Blatant Violations’ in Sector Shake-up
At a Tuesday briefing in Antwerp, the leadership of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), established in 1985, denounced what they called the “blatant violations” of the cultural institution reorganization, a move due to be debated in Belgium’s parliament on Friday.
“Antwerp represents the largest city in Flanders, with a heritage as a home of the avant-garde in Belgium,” stated Luc Tuymans, an Antwerp-based painter widely seen as Belgium’s foremost contemporary creator.
“To degrade a museum to an arts centre is simply insane. You cannot simply take a collection of pieces and transplant it into another ecosystem, because such an ecosystem does not exist,” he added.
Surprise Move Scraps New Building, Relocates Collection
In last autumn, the cultural affairs minister of the Flemish government cancelled the planned construction of a new, purpose-built €80m tower to house the museum, and announced plans to relocate its collection of approximately 8,000 artworks to Ghent’s Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Smak). This surprise move will effectively deprive the Antwerp museum of its official museum designation.
The M HKA’s collection also includes pieces by international artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Anish Kapoor and Marina Abramović.
“I do not accept that my works might be taken away from M HKA or otherwise put at risk as part of any structural reshuffling,” said British artist Kapoor in a message to the culture ministry.
Budget Pressures Drive Cost-Cutting in Arts Sector
The country is confronting a budget deficit of 5.4 percent of its economic output, one of the largest in the eurozone. The cultural domain in particular is facing dramatic cuts, with austerity measures also implying an uncertain future for Brussels’ new Kanal museum.
Under the proposals of Flanders’ socialist culture minister, the museum sector would be consolidated so that art collections in the region are housed within three beacon museums for historical, modern and contemporary art.
The region boasts a multitude of contemporary art museums: in addition to M HKA in Antwerp and Smak in Ghent, there is Musea Brugge in Bruges and Museum M in Leuven.
Financial Inspectorate Raises Doubts Cost-Saving Rationale
Whether the planned reorganization would actually reduce expenses has been questioned by Belgium’s financial inspectorate. In a report addressed to Gennez in October, it issued a negative assessment on the plans, suggesting their effect on the budget would be “fragmentary”.
Although moving the institution’s core holdings could cut running expenses from around €8m to €5m, it is believed that going forward the Antwerp institution would have to spend money to borrow works or purchase touring shows to draw audiences.
Ghent’s Smak, situated roughly an hour’s train ride from the M HKA, is also believed to presently lack enough space to properly house M HKA’s collection, and would need investment to expand its storage capacity.
