M HKA caught in the Crosshairs, what is the Museum’s Future?

Museum Watch – an initiative by CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, affiliated to ICOM (the International Council of Museums) – is profoundly concerned by the recent news that M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, an internationally respected contemporary art museum, is being regressed into a kunsthalle, and equally that it is being separated from its site-specific collection. This entails a significant loss for the city of Antwerp and for the European system of museums. Regressive cultural policies seek centralization, lack understanding of the role of collections, their connection to specific contexts and institutions, and give way to decision-making that is not based on professional standards. These decisions greatly weaken the system of museums in a country and in a region, jeopardizing decades of cultural work and heritage, thus dismantling the possibility of strong museum institutions that serve a common good.