The Flemish ministry of culture has ordered the closure of M HKA, the museum of contemporary art in Antwerp, Belgium, and the transfer of its collection to S.M.A.K. in Ghent. A planned €130m new building for M HKA, ready to break ground, has been cancelled. In response, artists and cultural workers have launched a "Museum at Risk" campaign, occupying the museum's entrance and pressuring city councillors, while international artists like Emilia Kabakov and the estate of Christian Boltanski are demanding the return of their works.
This matters because M HKA's dissolution signals a broader crisis in arts funding and political vision. The museum served as a "development laboratory" for emerging and established art, with a focus on non-spectacular, archival practices and trans-European cultural dialogue through its membership in L’internationale. Its closure reflects a shift away from supporting art as a long-term ecosystem toward short-term political and economic benchmarks, a trend that threatens similar institutions across Western Europe.