Gentrification has now turned the neighbourhood into a hipster quarter, though 25 years ago it certainly wasn’t. The establishment of M HKA was one of the motors behind its transformation, in fact.

For 15 years, the art historian and curator Flor Bex spearheaded his brainchild and in 2002 was succeeded by Bart De Baere. Shortly after, the Centre for Image Culture became part of M HKA. These days it’s called Cinema Zuid, showing a mix of classics and arthouse film.

Ambitious goals

Contrary to the contemporary art museum SMAK in Ghent, which is mainly financed by the city, M HKA is an institution of the Flemish Community. In her new policy note for 2012-2016, minister for culture Joke Schauvliege formulated some ambitious goals for M KHA. In Flanders, the museum has to be a trailblazer; internationally, it has to strive for recognition.

De Baere agrees. “As an institution of the Flemish Community, you have the duty to aim high,” he says. “Not only showing what has already been internationally accepted but sensing when an artist is on the brink of recognition.”

De Baere cites the just-closed Jimmie Durham exhibition A matter of life and death and singing as an example of the museum’s approach. “Internationally, he’s the artist of the year: Loads of articles have been written about him and he’s finally starting to sell his work on a large scale, both to museums and private collectors. It’s clearly a moment of celebration; he’s becoming part of the canon.” M HKA’s exhibition, he notes, was “the most exhaustive overview of his work ever.”

The tasks the Flemish Community has given to M KHA seem to focus mainly on showing art and less on collecting. Yet this is an essential characteristic of a museum – the distinguishing factor between a museum and a public art gallery, like Wiels in Brussels. Or, in an international context, between the Tate and the Hayward Gallery.

“The public mainly values a museum for its exhibitions,” says De Baere. “The question ‘Is it a good museum?’ has almost become synonymous for ‘Does it attract a lot of visitors?’ Indeed, this still has to change. The international appeal and our leadership function, in the long run, are strongly related to how we develop our permanent collection.”

One arrow, three bullseyes

That might be a problem. M HKA’s budget for acquisitions is a scant €100,000 a year. At its opening in 1987, the museum had an annual acquisition budget of six million Belgian francs, which, taking into account inflation, is €250,000. De Baere had asked for €1 million in his 2012-2016 policy note. He stays diplomatic about the amount (“It’s odd”).

“Acquisitions are the most efficient instrument a museum has: With one arrow you strike three bullseyes. There’s nothing an artist prefers above being bought by a museum, not only for the money but also as a token of appreciation. At the same time, it’s a support for galleries, and it’s an investment in the future.”

In 2002, De Baere took up his function as director of M HKA. Until then he had been the assistant of Jan Hoet at SMAK in Ghent, which, coincidentally, was looking for a new director, too, since Hoet was retiring. “When I told Jan that I’d be applying for the director’s post at M HKA,” De Baere remembers, “he told me: ‘I completely understand. In Ghent, everything has been done; in Antwerp everything is still to do.’ He exaggerated, but I also thought that Antwerp had a potential that had not been exploited.”

That was the mindset with which De Baere embarked on his journey “That Antwerp deserved a strong museum for contemporary art. I had respect for the heritage of Flor Bex, whose work, unfairly, wasn’t always appreciated by the vox populi.”

M HKA, he continues, “cannot be compared to what it was a decade ago. The most important change is the international recognition. Two internationally renowned curators, Sweden’s Anders Kreuger and Briton Nav Haq, have come to work here. Another colleague, Dieter Roelstrate, has just left to become senior curator at the MCA in Chicago, one of America’s most important institutions for contemporary art.”