Museum Watch criticises M HKA reform as "significant loss" for Europe
The reform of Flemish museums, announced earlier this week, is receiving international criticism. In an open letter published on Thursday, Museum Watch highlighted the changes made to Antwerp’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA) as "a significant loss" for Europe.
Earlier this week, Flemish Culture minister Caroline Gennez announced that Antwerp’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA) will not receive a new building. The museum will be turned into an arts centre, with its collection transferred to S.M.A.K in Ghent. The changes are part of a wider reform of the Flemish museum landscape.
These changes are controversial. Museum Watch, an initiative by CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, expressed its “profound concern” in an open letter, calling the move “a significant loss for the city of Antwerp and for the European system of museums.”
A "regressive" decision
Museum Watch says it is "unexpected" that such a "regressive" decision would take place in Belgium, and especially Antwerp. "Over the past 40 years, M HKA has accrued a well-deserved reputation as a European museum of international standing," the letter reads, praising its role in supporting artists early in their careers and for its "multipolar and diverse approach."
The open letter also questions the move of the collection to S.M.A.K.. The museum in Ghent "is ailing and in dire need of a building in which to display its own collection", the letter states, which will be difficult to realise in a city suffering from a large budget deficit.
Museum Watch is asking Gennez to draw up a “new vision” for the M HKA “in which it is not emptied out and turned into a shell". The letter concludes by stating the organisation's hope "that this exceptional and devastating decision will be undone".
#FlandersNewsService | A protest action by M HKA employees. © BELGA PHOTO TIJS VANDERSTAPPEN
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