"In a surprise move, the Flemish government this week announced that it would dissolve the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, known as M KHA, and move its collection to the contemporary art museum in Ghent. The stunning decision has rattled the European art world and protests and petitions are circulating in support of the Belgian museum. M KHA, which is the oldest contemporary art museum in Belgium, is home to an 8,000 object collection and presents a mixture of single-artist surveys and group exhibitions."
""The very idea of stripping Antwerp of its museum and shipping its singular collection off to Ghent, to a museum with both a very strong identity and considerable infrastructural challenges of its own, just sounds... shambolic," says Dieter Roelstraete, who was a curator at M KHA from 2003 until 2011. She describes the move as "ludicrous, short-sighted, and all too obviously politically motivated in ways we thought we had long outgrown"."
Flemish authorities announced the dissolution of the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M KHA) and the transfer of its 8,000-object collection to Ghent’s S.M.A.K., forming the Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art by 2028. The Antwerp site will be repurposed as an arts centre that continues to host exhibitions alongside studios and residencies. The decision followed cancellation of a planned €130 million new building and came despite prior ministerial assurances of the museum’s role and staff security. The announcement was made without prior notice to M KHA and has provoked protests and petitions across the European art world.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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