Artists decry dismantling of Belgium’s oldest contemporary art museum

Prominent artists are protesting the Flanders region's plan to dismantle Belgium's oldest contemporary art museum, the M HKA in Antwerp, due to budget deficits. The region intends to move the museum's 8,000-piece collection to Ghent's Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Smak), effectively stripping the M HKA of its museum status. Artists like Luc Tuymans and Anish Kapoor argue that transplanting the collection will harm its integrity and that downgrading the Antwerp museum is detrimental to the city's cultural legacy. The proposed changes are part of broader austerity measures impacting the arts sector, including potential consequences for Brussels' new Kanal museum. The Flanders region aims to streamline art collections into three beacon museums for historical, modern, and contemporary art.

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