Artists criticize the dismantling of the oldest museum of contemporary art in Belgium Belgium

Prominent artists have spoken out against the “arbitrary reshaping” of Belgium’s museum scene, as the Flanders region seeks to cut public spending by dismantling the country’s oldest contemporary art museum and moving its entire collection to another city.

At a press conference in Antwerp on Tuesday, directors of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (M HKA), founded in 1985, denounced what they called “flagrant irregularities” in the museum sector’s change process, which is scheduled to be debated in the Belgian parliament on Friday.

In October, the culture minister of Flanders canceled the planned construction of a new €80 million high-rise to house the museum and announced plans to move its collection of 8,000 artworks to the Ghent Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (Smak), a surprise move that would in effect strip the Antwerp institution of its museum status.

“Antwerp is the largest city in Flanders, and has a legacy as the home of the avant-garde in Belgium,” said Luc Tuymans, an Antwerp-based painter who is widely regarded as Belgium’s most influential artist.

“Converting a museum into an arts center is simply madness. You cannot simply take a collection of artworks and transplant them into another ecosystem, because such an ecosystem does not exist.”

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

British artist Kapoor has protested against plans to move his works to Ghent, telling the culture ministry in an email seen by the Guardian: “I cannot accept the prospect of them being removed from the M HKA or being put at risk as part of any institutional reorganization.”

Belgium faces a budget deficit of 5.4% of GDP, one of the largest in the euro zone. The arts sector in particular is facing deep cuts, with austerity measures also pointing to an uncertain future for Brussels’ new Canal Museum, which was originally designed to become one of Europe’s largest new arts complexes when it is scheduled to open at the end of this year.

Under the proposals of Flanders’ Socialist Minister of Culture, Caroline Jenes, the museum sector will be simplified so that the region’s art collections will be concentrated in three beacon museums of historical, modern and contemporary art.

Flanders has a large number of contemporary art museums: in addition to the M HKA in Antwerp and the MAK in Ghent, there is the Bruges Museum in Bruges and the MV Museum in Leuven.

However, Belgian financial inspectors have questioned whether the proposed change would actually reduce costs. In a memo sent to Genie’s in October, she expressed a negative opinion of the proposals, suggesting that their impact on the budget would be “fragmentary”.

While the transfer of the museum’s permanent collection could reduce operating costs from around €8 million to €5 million, it is understood that in the future the Antwerp Foundation will have to spend money to borrow works or purchase at exhibitions to attract visitors.

It is also believed that Ghen’s Smak, which is located about an hour by train from the Antwerp Museum, currently does not have enough space to adequately store the M HKA collection, and will need investment to expand its storage capacity.