M HKA caught in the Crosshairs, what is the Museum’s Future?

CIMAM is the only global network of modern and contemporary art museum experts in the field. CIMAM members are directors and curators working in modern and contemporary art museums, collections, and archives.

Museum Watch – an initiative by CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, affiliated to ICOM (the International Council of Museums) – is profoundly concerned by the recent news that M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, an internationally respected contemporary art museum, is being regressed into a kunsthalle, and equally that it is being separated from its site-specific collection. This entails a significant loss for the city of Antwerp and for the European system of museums. Regressive cultural policies seek centralization, lack understanding of the role of collections, their connection to specific contexts and institutions, and give way to decision-making that is not based on professional standards. These decisions greatly weaken the system of museums in a country and in a region, jeopardizing decades of cultural work and heritage, thus dismantling the possibility of strong museum institutions that serve a common good.

That this is happening in Belgium, and especially Antwerp, is unexpected. Over the past 40 years, M HKA has accrued a well-deserved reputation as a European museum of international standing focusing on contemporary art, building on a predecessor founded in 1970. It is known for helping to foster artists’ careers with its first-time-survey exhibitions before these artists become more established and for an extremely multipolar and diverse approach. It has a major collection anchored in the localized internationality of the post Second World War avant-garde, of which the harbor city of Antwerp was a hotbed of artist activity, and sees this as a strong foundation from which to approach today’s world. Ahead of its time, M HKA was looking towards Eurasia twenty years ago.

M HKA is one of the two Flemish museums in a federalized country that has been declared a ‘Cultural Heritage Institution’ by its government in recognition of its mission to work at the level of international excellence. Because of this, the government committed to a new 80-million-euro building project (with a total project cost of 130 million euros) by nominated architects Bovenbouw and Christ & Gantenbein, finally making it feasible to showcase its collection. The museum, led by Bart De Baere, a distinguished museum professional, secretary-general of CIMAM, and chair of the Museum Watch committee from 2016 to 2024, had already initiated the institutional transition towards this ambitious project.

Without warning, the government has recently decided to cancel the building of this new museum, and in parallel, announced the reorganization of the Flemish art museums. Despite Belgium’s position of austerity, this is clearly not a budget-saving operation, as the infrastructure funds will now be allocated to other cultural institutions in Antwerp, including the performing arts, opera, a fine arts museum, a conference center and the Antwerp Zoo.

Under this new plan, contemporary art will be ‘centralized’ at SMAK in Ghent. This museum is the second largest public contemporary art museum in the country, having achieved note under its director Jan Hoet. Currently, however, it is ailing and in dire need of a building in which to display its own collection. SMAK is a city museum in a city that has a huge budget deficit. Overnight, the Flemish government has decided to take over this museum and initiate an architectural planning trajectory. In so doing, it plans to dismantle its own museum, M HKA, and transfer the collection – and the years of museal expertise – to Ghent, M HKA’s current building becoming a Kunsthalle in cooperation with the Antwerp city government, despite an assurance that staff will be retained.

This government plan is based upon a false administrative logic that sees collections as merely an assorted accumulation of items. The Museum Watch committee would respectfully like to point out that what the Flemish government doesn’t understand is that collections are coherent bodies that enhance the meaning of art works by the institutional commitment to their contextualization, the narratives around them and their relation to a particular place. This localization is deeply important in the case of Antwerp, with its amazing history of contemporary, a city in which Gordon Matta-Clark realized Office Baroque, Marcel Broodthaers made most of his iconic exhibitions, Joseph Beuys filmed his performance Eurasienstab, a city that is the home of world-ranking artists Luc Tuymans, David Claerbout and Otobong Nkanga.

When asked how he feels, Bart De Baere stated, “I’m at a loss. We are living in a democracy here, in which we nominate people to take decisions for us. It’s important to take that seriously. I am actively committed to several countries in which people are dying for this very reason. At the same time, I am beyond flabbergasted by both the decision and its hollowness, so I am trying to understand how to navigate between that and democratic logic. At this moment, my colleagues and the artists we serve are my primary concern.”

CIMAM, the most relevant global network of museums and museum professionals in the field of modern and contemporary art, recognized for supporting the interests and integrity of museums, expresses its deep concern about a potentially disastrous decision that will have an unprecedented impact on Antwerp by negating the essential cultural, social, and economic contribution of M HKA to the well-being of the city. This decision also violates the ICOM Museum Definition and its Code of Ethics, to which CIMAM responds and adheres: “A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally, and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection, and knowledge sharing.”

The Museum Watch Committee asks the Flemish minister of culture to find an alternative way to take political responsibility for M HKA, to find a new vision that sees and responds to the value in the museum and its location, a vision in which it is not emptied out and turned into a shell merely for the dynamics of the moment. Museum Watch hopes that this exceptional and devastating decision will be undone.

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The CIMAM Museum Watch Committee:

• Zeina Arida, (Chair of the Museum Watch) Director, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar.

• Amanda de la Garza, Artistic Deputy Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid, Spain.

• Malgorzata Ludwisiak, Ph.D., Museum Management Expert / Freelance Curator / Academic Teacher, Warsaw, Poland.

• Agustin Perez Rubio, Independent Curator, Madrid, Spain.

• Kitty Scott, Strategic Director, Fogo Island Arts / Shorefast, Toronto, Canada.

• Yu Jin Seng, Director (Curatorial & Research), National Gallery Singapore, Singapore.