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\n\tAs part of this change, which will begin next year and be completed by 2028, S.M.A.K.<\/a> in Ghent will become the Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art. The collection of the Antwerp-based M HKA<\/a> (an acronym for the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, in Dutch) will be transferred to that new museum, and its holdings will be moved to Ghent.<\/p>\n \n\tFounded in 1985, the M HKA is the oldest contemporary art museum in Belgium, predating S.M.A.K. by more than a decade. Its collection now numbers around 8,000 objects, and it is known for its closely watched exhibition program, featuring a mix of single-artist surveys and group exhibitions. Recent shows include solos for N\u00e1stio Mosquito (in 2024), Dorothy Iannone (2023), and Anthea Hamilton (2022), as well as the 2024 exhibition \u201cThe Lives of Animals.\u201d The museum is currently hosting the Kyiv Biennial 2025 and a survey of Pauline Curnier Jardin, with a major Nicola L. retrospective planned for 2026.<\/p>\n \n\tS.M.A.K., which has a collection of some 3,000 works from the postwar era to today, will also take over M HKA\u2019s mission to present contemporary art, while M HKA\u2019s current building will be transformed into an arts center that will stage exhibitions, as well as host studios, residencies, and other programming\u2014seemingly adopting the Kunsthalle model that is prominent in several other European countries. Similarly, the Centre for Art Archives Flanders, which is housed at M HKA, \u201cwill also be repositioned in the field,\u201d according to the release.<\/p>\n \n\tOn Tuesday, the day after the new museum plan was announced, M HKA\u2019s board chairman Herman De Bode resigned after eight years. According to a report<\/a> by Art Dependence Magazine, he said, \u201cthe decision taken by the Flemish government to behead the M HKA, at the suggestion of the Minister of Culture, is too crazy for words. This happened without any participation from anyone on our side. I think that\u2019s criminal. I have no other words for it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBode said that what makes M HKA unique as an institution is \u201ctied to our history. You can relocate some works of art, but you don\u2019t really move anything with that. You cannot export the avant-garde to Ghent. It\u2019s Antwerp.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFlemish museums can be proud of their collections,\u201d Flemish culture minister Caroline Gennez told<\/a> Belga New Agency. \u201cBut in order to get more out of those collections and realise the ambitions of scaling up and internationalisation, more cooperation is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThese decisions seem to have been made without input from the respective institutions. The M HKA has published an open letter, written by its employees and addressed to Gennez, about \u201cthis insane plan,\u201d which they say was done without \u201cspeak[ing] to us personally in Antwerp\u201d and done without transparency. The letter includes a link to a petition, titled \u201c\u26a0\ufe0fCall for Mass Protest:\u26a0\ufe0f Keep the M HKA collection in Antwerp!\u201d on the site openPetition<\/a>; by Wednesday, it had garnered more than 2,600 signatures.<\/p>\n \n\tThe aim of the letter, the employees write, is to \u201cexpress our concern about the recent policy decisions concerning the future of our museum, which we first learned about in the press on Friday and then on Monday. \u2026 We feel not only completely surprised, but also shocked and even insulted by your plans, the way they were developed, and the communication about them.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn her comments to Belga, Gennez said that \u201cthe M HKA has been struggling with its role as a museum for some time, as confirmed once again by the recent evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLikely in response to this comment, the M HKA\u2019s open letter reads, \u201cDespite all its challenges, the Muhka is a unique place in Flanders where the critical and social potential of contemporary visual art is fully expressed. Ambiguity and complexity are given space there; beauty and meaning are not reduced to clear-cut messages or sound bites. In this way, the museum fulfills a crucial role within the cultural landscape \u2013 not as a showcase or tourist attraction, but as a space for reflection, imagination, and dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe news comes a week after the Flemish government announced that it would cancel a planned a new building for the M HKA that was estimated to cost \u20ac130 million (around $151 million). That new building had been in the works for nearly a decade; a 2020 architecture competition was abandoned, with a new one beginning in 2023. The museum had announced in February that two firms, Bovenbouw Architectuur and Christ & Gantenbein, had been selected to design the building.<\/p>\n