MUSEUM AT RISK
Save the MUSEUM

Letter to Mayor of Antwerp and Prime Minister of Belgium Bart De Wever

4 November 2025 - 10:17 am – Open letter

On 2 November 2025, Save the Museum | Museum at Risk sent a letter to Bart De Wever, Mayor of Antwerp and Prime Minister of Belgium. Today, we are publishing the letter publicly.

Dear Mr De Wever,

We read with great interest the press reports about your visit to Egypt and your attendance at the opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

At the same time, the press in your own country is full of reports about the closure of the Museum of Contemporary Art in your city, Antwerp.

In a letter dated 27 October 2025 to Minister of Culture Caroline Gennez, we expressed our dismay (https://www.savethemuseum.be/en/news/letter-to-minister-of-culture-caroline-gennez/).

Save the Museum | Museum at Risk is a recently established collective of artists and numerous actors from the arts field, backed by a steering group of external experts.

In the letter to the minister, we put forward four points for consideration:

  1. We want a museum for contemporary art in Antwerp.
  2. A museum for contemporary art has a collection.
  3. A museum for contemporary art of international standing requires appropriate infrastructure and funding.
  4. We want a say and a right of co-decision in the reform of Flemish museums.

We also ask that the tradition of consultation between authorities and actors in the field be continued in this case. This tradition has led, among other things, to an excellent studio policy for artists in your city, which serves as an example for other cities in Flanders.

We can imagine that after your successful visit to the Grand Egyptian Museum, which, incidentally, offers a considerable programme of contemporary art in addition to archaeological finds and artefacts, you may also wish to invite Egyptian dignitaries to your city with a rich museum history. It would be a shame if the leading Antwerp Museum of Contemporary Art, with its exquisite collection, were to be missing.

We would therefore like to ask you to consult with your colleagues on how we can preserve and improve the Museum of Contemporary Art in your city. We kindly request that you schedule a meeting with our representatives in the near future.

Thank you in advance,

on behalf of Save the Museum | Museum at Risk

Danny Devos, artist
Tamara Beheydt, writer and curator

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