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Leading artists have raised their voices in protest against what they label as an “arbitrary reshaping” of Belgium’s cultural scene, as regional authorities seek to reduce expenditures by dismantling the operations of the country’s most historic modern art institution and transplanting its complete holdings to a different urban center.

Directors Decry ‘Blatant Violations’ in Sector Shake-up

At a recent press conference in Antwerp, the leadership of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), established in 1985, decried what they termed the “flagrant illegalities” of the museum sector shake-up, a plan scheduled for discussed in the national legislature this Friday.

“Antwerp is the largest city in Flanders, with a heritage as a hub of the cutting-edge in Belgium,” said renowned painter Luc Tuymans, an Antwerp-based painter broadly regarded as Belgium’s foremost living artist.

“To degrade a cultural institution to an arts centre is simply insane. You cannot simply move a collection of artworks and transplant it into another ecosystem, because that specific context does not exist,” he added.

Surprise Move Cancels €80m Project, Moves Collection

In October, the culture minister of the Flanders region scrapped the proposed development of a specially designed €80m high-rise building to accommodate the museum, and announced plans to relocate its holdings of approximately 8,000 pieces to Ghent’s Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Smak). This unexpected decision will effectively deprive the Antwerp institution of its museum status.

The Antwerp museum’s collection also includes works by globally renowned creators such as Kerry James Marshall, Anish Kapoor and Marina Abramović.

“I cannot accept that they might be taken away from M HKA or otherwise put at risk as part of any structural reshuffling,” stated artist Anish Kapoor in a communication to the ministry.

Financial Constraints Motivate Austerity in Arts Sector

The country is confronting a budget deficit of 5.4% of GDP, one of the largest in the eurozone. The cultural domain in particular is confronting significant reductions, with austerity measures also suggesting an unclear fate for the new Brussels Kanal museum.

According to the plans of Flanders’ socialist culture minister, the museum sector would be streamlined so that art collections in the region are housed within three flagship institutions for historical, modern and contemporary art.

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

Financial Inspectorate Raises Doubts Savings Logic

Whether the proposed shake-up would truly lower costs has been challenged by the national audit office. In a report addressed to the minister in October, it issued a negative assessment on the proposals, indicating their impact on the budget would be “fragmentary”.

While moving the museum’s permanent collection could reduce operating costs from around €8m to €5m, it is understood that in future the Antwerp museum would have to allocate funds to loan artworks or buy in exhibitions to draw audiences.

The Smak museum in Ghent, situated roughly an hour by train from the M HKA, is also thought to currently not have sufficient room to adequately store M HKA’s collection, and would require funding to expand its storage capacity.