Save M HKA: A Roundtable – Responses from Pascal Gielen

The local repercussions in Antwerp will be profound. The city’s visual arts ecosystem will lose one of its primary anchors connecting it to the international museum and biennial circuits. For Flanders as a whole, the cultural impact is equally severe: with only S.M.A.K. remaining as a national-level museum for contemporary art, the international representation of living Flemish artists will effectively be cut. No single institution can take over the full infrastructural role M HKA has built over decades. This weakening will diminish the ability to contextualise and position local artists within the broader global conversation, a crucial function in today’s multipolar cultural world. Although various art centers and Kunst Hallen (such as Extra City and WIELS) mediate between local scenes and international networks, each actor contributes to that ecology. Losing M HKA as a fully empowered museum therefore constitutes a structural blow, especially for emerging and mid-career artists in Antwerp.