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Eminent creators have raised their voices in protest against what they label as an “arbitrary reshaping” of Belgium’s cultural scene, as the Flanders government aim to cut public spending by dismantling the country’s oldest modern art institution and transplanting its entire collection to a different urban center.

Directors Decry ‘Blatant Violations’ in Sector Shake-up

At a Tuesday briefing in Antwerp, the directors of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), established in 1985, decried what they called the “blatant violations” of the cultural institution reorganization, a move scheduled for debated in Belgium’s parliament this Friday.

“Antwerp is Flanders’ biggest city, with a legacy as a home of the cutting-edge in Belgium,” stated Luc Tuymans, an Antwerp-based artist widely seen as Belgium’s most influential living artist.

“To degrade a cultural institution to an exhibition space is utterly irrational. You cannot just take a collection of artworks and transfer it into another ecosystem, because such an ecosystem is not present,” he added.

Unexpected Decision Scraps New Building, Relocates Holdings

In October, the culture minister of the Flanders region cancelled the proposed development of a new, purpose-built €80m high-rise building to house the institution, and announced plans to move its collection of approximately 8,000 pieces to Ghent’s Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Smak). This surprise move will in effect strip the Antwerp museum of its museum status.

The Antwerp museum’s collection features works by international artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Anish Kapoor and Marina Abramović.

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

Financial Constraints Motivate Cost-Cutting in Cultural Field

Belgium faces a fiscal shortfall of 5.4 percent of its economic output, one of the largest in the eurozone. The arts sector specifically is confronting dramatic cuts, with budget-tightening policies also suggesting an uncertain future for the new Brussels Kanal museum.

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

The region boasts a plethora of modern art institutions: 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 planned reorganization would truly lower costs has been challenged by the national audit office. In a memorandum sent to Gennez in October, it gave an unfavourable opinion on the plans, indicating their impact on the budget would be “partial and incomplete”.

Although transplanting the institution’s core holdings could reduce operating costs from around €8m to €5m, it is understood that going forward the Antwerp museum would have to spend money to loan artworks or buy in exhibitions to draw audiences.

Ghent’s Smak, located about an hour by train from the M HKA, is also thought to presently lack enough space to adequately store M HKA’s collection, and would require funding to expand its storage capacity.