Opinion article by Bart De Baere, director of M HKA, written in response to the recent decision of the Flemish Government to cancel the museum’s new building and to revoke M HKA’s museum status.
There was good news, early this week. The S.M.A.K. will become a Flemish institution, perhaps even a cultural heritage institution with international ambitions. I've been advocating for that for years. Flanders deserves at least two museums of contemporary art, because contemporary art needs multiple perspectives.
But there was bad news too. In just two days we learned, through the press, that the new building of the M HKA will not go ahead and that our museum will lose its official status. Antwerp loses its museum of contemporary art. The city that produced so many artists – Panamarenko, Luc Tuymans, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Guillaume Bijl, Otobong Nkanga – risks losing its visible narrative within contemporary art.
“Flanders deserves at least two museums of contemporary art, because contemporary art needs multiple perspectives.”
The ICC, M HKA's predecessor, was established in1970 as the first institution of the young Flemish community. The King granted it the palace on the Meir, at the request of a new generation of artists in the wake of May ’68. That's how Flanders-almost by coincidence found itself connected to the world of the avant-garde that flourished in Antwerp. That art, provocative as it was, laid the foundation for the language and form of contemporary art that exists today worldwide.
M HKA took that heritage seriously. We began with an uninventored collection, partly stored in containers in the port. Twenty years later, our museum department had grown from two to twenty people-without additional resources. We built a collection that connected the local avant-garde with the international scene: Panamarenko alongside Joseph Beuys, Jef Geys alongside James Lee Byars, Luc Deleu alongside Gordon Matta Clark. We acquired work by women artists with an Antwerp link such as Chantal Akerman, Nicola L, Orlan and Chris Reineke.
We did the same for the art of the 1980's and 1990's, when our art scene was internationally influential. And for the world of today, where Flanders engages with diversity at home and internationally on Eurasia. We quite literally brought the world into our house. But we could hardly show all that remarkable work because we are rightly also expected to have exhibitions, both internationally innovative and with attention to artists from here.
“We built out a collection that connected the local avant-garde with the international scene: Panamarenko alongside Joseph Beuys, Jef Geys alongside James Lee Byars, Luc Deleu alongside Gordon Matta Clark. “
When Flanders finally seemed ready to assume its responsibility ten years ago, we also started our own routes towards a full-fledged museum. We experimented with new presentation forms, collaborations with, among others, De Studio where we moved our film work, we tested a prototype reception space and a single semi-fixed collection space, thanks to Axel Vervoordt. We mainly worked on the invisible: collection research, archives, digitization – the future of museum work.
Together with the administration, we discussed an institutional transition, in parallel with the construction project for the new building that was included in the coalition agreement of 2019. There was new energy, a future perspective. Until this spring we learned that we had to submit a traditional policy plan under the standard procedures of grants for rural – urban – museums. No international expert review committee as is customary for art institutions. However, the previous evaluation had already made it clear that this type of institution needed an adapted assessment framework. The evaluation of the previous heritage grant round explicitly stated: ‘The procedure for assessing the application for operating grants for the existing cultural heritage institution [M HKA] was insufficiently adapted to the specificity of this type of organisation. This procedure should be completely reconsidered.’ That never happened.
This time, the evaluation committee was a general committee from the broad heritage field. Good people, not that. They read our forty-page plan, visited the house, asked questions, and decided that the plan was not yet concrete enough. That's right. We were in the middle of a start-up transition, and without clarity about the construction and resources we could not finish that. After all, my successor – I am retiring at the end of 2026 – would continue that work. But on that basis, abolish an institution? That's not careful policy. A city councilor for culture could have come to take a look. A minister could have done the same. We had also requested an international peer review by experts from contemporary art museums, given our mission, just as opera houses or orchestras are assessed under the arts decree. At this stage, where we were already in the beginning of a transition scenario towards the new museum, that would have been all the more desirable.
I now blame myself for going along with that ritual bureaucratric process. I should have said louder that it wasn't right, that we couldn't spend five months on paperwork while the future of the museum was at stake. Maybe I was too polite.
“Flanders is choosing not to opt for a fully-fledged museum for contemporary art-one that would finally begin to make up for the lag in nfrastructure within the visual arts sector. And Antwerp, which once brought the world into its home, is losing its place in that world.”
For the past seven years, I hardly had time to meet artists or visit exhibitions. Everything went into planning, meetings, committees and architecture juries. All to finally give Flanders a full-fledged museum of contemporary art – modest in scope, with a construction cost of 80 million euros, ten percent smaller than the MAS in Antwerp.
And now this. The new building is cancelled, the museum status revoked. In its place 'a center for the arts.' The term sounds innocent, but it means something fundamental: Flanders does not choose a full-fledged museum for contemporary art, one that would have marked the beginning of long overdue investment in infrastructure of the visual arts. And Antwerp, which once brought the world into the house, loses its place in that world.
I remain willing to think along about how we can move forward. But let's face it: there is a need for respect, sense of realism and trust in the expertise of people who have devoted their lives to this institution. Contemporary art does not deserve administrative punishment, but a policy that listens and understands.
Antwerp was once a cradle of innovation. Let's not forget that courage. Let's make it possible again.
“Contemporary art does not deserve administrative punishment, but a policy that listens and understands.”
Main Image: Bart De Baere, Director, M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium