Flemish Government Scraps Plan to Dissolve M HKA After Backlash
36Feb. 6, 2026
Belgium is abandoning its plan to dismantle theMuseum of Contemporary Art Antwerp(M HKA) after being met with stiff resistance from the artistic community. The government had aimed to cancel construction of a high-rise building that was to have served as M HKA’s new home and to strip the museum, the oldest contemporary arts institution in the country, of its national museum status; the 8,000-piece collection would have then moved to S.M.A.K in Ghent, some fifty miles away.
The revelation of the scheme in January drewimmediate criticism, with theMuseum Watch Committee publicly denouncing italongside prominent artists from the region, including Luc Tuymans and Otobong Nkanga, and well-known European museum leaders, among them Tate’s Maria Balshaw, the Serpentine’s Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Rijksmuseum’s Taco Dibbits, and the Centre Pompidou’s Laurent Le Bon.
The Flemish culture ministry, under the leadership of Caroline Gennez, has said that M HKA will retain its collection and its national museum status, though construction of its new home will not take place. According to the Brussels Times, the institution will enter a phase called “M HKA 2.0.” In this iteration, for which the museum has yet to introduce a plan, M HKA will increase support for contemporary visual artists, strengthen the connection between heritage and the arts, and collaborate with the broader museum sector under a two-year cooperation agreement.
Gennez additionally announced the establishment of a general assembly on the future of visual arts in Flanders. The assembly will offer long-term recommendations for the arts sector, and is expected to produce a vision statement in June, in collaboration with Flemish museums.
MSN reports that M HKA issued no statement on its reprieve but instead sent out an announcement of its 2026 programming, which includes iterations of traveling retrospectives featuring Lee Bul and Nicola L., as well as the group show “we refuse_d,” which revolves around themes of censorship and recently appeared at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha. Several shows of works from M HKA’s collection are planned as well.