The Muhka victim of the reorganization of museums in Flanders

Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent. The Muhka experienced the darkest week of its forty years of existence. Opened in 1987 and expanded in 1997, the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunsten Antwerpen, in other words the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, dreamed of being bigger and more beautiful. A reference museum on the international contemporary scene, the institution felt cramped within its walls which, lacking windows or bay windows, left nothing of its activities visible to passers-by. The project for a new transparent building, first mentioned in 2016, took a more concrete turn at the beginning of this year, after the decision of the Flemish government to finance the project selected following an architectural competition launched in 2023 with 130 million euros.

But after the white smoke, there was a cold shower. On October 3, the Flemish Minister of Culture, Caroline Gennez, announced in a press release that funding for the new museum was canceled. To justify her decision, the minister relies on the unpredictable increase in construction costs and on the rather unfavorable conclusions of an evaluation study carried out this summer. It was highlighted that the management and activities of Muhka “lacked strength” and that the institution had to reinvent itself. It also turns out that the amount thus released should be able to benefit other Antwerp cultural institutions such as the KMSKA (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) and the Antwerp Opera, highlighted as indisputable cultural ambassadors of Flanders. The Muhka may nevertheless still have a certain amount available for slight renovations of the current building, on the basis of concrete proposals.

Three reference “clusters”

As bad news rarely comes alone, two days later, the minister called a press conference to communicate, to everyone’s surprise, an ambitious plan to reorganize museums in Flanders, from which the Muhka emerged as the big loser. In a context of budgetary drying up, the minister wants to reorganize the role and missions of museums supported by public authorities under the pretext of increasing and improving collaboration within the sector. In the new museum landscape, institutions will be grouped into three “clusters” to which other museums will be linked. The Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp will become the reference center for fine arts, the Mu.ZEE in Ostend, the core of the “modern art and Belgian masters” center (1850 to today), while the SMAK in Ghent will host the “contemporary and current art” reference center. As for Muhka, it will become an international art center, “a place of exchange where Belgian and international artists of all disciplines are invited to experiment”, specified the minister.

In this configuration, a large part of the collections of the Antwerp museum would be entrusted to the Ghent museum for which such an opportunity would not be refused, especially since the SMAK is ultimately planning an expansion with rooms devoted to the exhibition of its permanent collection.

In Antwerp, the reactions were not long in coming. Herman De Bode, the chairman of the board of directors of Muhka, resigned, regretting that his team was never involved in the reflection on the proposed plans, asserting in passing that he was not working with “idiots and incompetents”. Worried about its future, the museum staff, supported by the socialist union ACOD, launched a petition to oppose the ministerial decision, collecting a thousand signatures twenty-four hours after it was posted online and is now approaching 7,000.

A library and museum work made invisible

Director of Muhka since 2002, Bert De Baere is stunned by this brutal decision imposed from above. The dominant feeling is incomprehension. “It’s absurd, this plan was taken in small committee without taking into account the experience of the teams and the reality on the ground. I also believe that there is a lack of understanding of what a contemporary art museum is, which does not function like a museum of ancient art or modern art. he laments. He notes that the Muhka, whose artistic library includes nearly 40,000 works, is not just about exhibitions. It also highlights the important research and archiving work that the museum carries out and which will be difficult to maintain in the context of an art center. “It is all the more regrettable (as) contemporary art is one of the strong points of Flanders, even if the ecosystem which structures it has not been sufficiently developed and undoubtedly will not be. » Since the 1960s, in fact, the port metropolis has played an important role in the dissemination of contemporary art and the international influence of its artists, notably with the ICC (Internationaal Cultureel Centrum) and the White Space Gallery.

The fears of the Muhka team obviously relate to the sustainability of a collection rich in nearly 8,000 pieces of various origins, sometimes acquired thanks to donors who must give their agreement if the work changes use. “We cannot separate a collection from the context in which it was created. All the added value would disappear. With regrouping under current conditions, a large part of the collection will be rendered invisible for a long time. And those who have the most to lose are young artists,” continues Bert De Baere.

The concrete modalities of this upheaval and the expected missions of the “new Muhka” still remain unclear. Discussions and adjustments will be more than necessary. Before everything is in place, however, a transition phase is planned, between the beginning of 2026 and 2028.