The Flemish government has announced that it will close the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA) and absorb its collection into a new contemporary art museum in Ghent. The move is part of a major reorganisation of Flemish museums, with S.M.A.K in Ghent– where the M HKA collection will be moved – becoming the new Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art. The M HKA space is to be turned into a centre for exhibitions, studios, workshops and residences. The Art Newspaper reports that the decision has been criticised by the Belgian arts community: Dieter Roelstraete, a former curator at M HKA, called the move ‘ludicrous, short-sighted, and all too obviously politically motivated in ways we thought we had long outgrown’. Last week, Flemish culture minister Caroline Gennez announced the cancellation of M HKA’s planned new building – a €130m project that has been in the works for the past decade – but said that this would not affect employees. Director of the museum, Bart De Baere, said that M HKA was not made aware of the merger before the announcement.
Frieze has announced its first art fair in the Middle East. Replacing Abu Dhabi Art, the first edition of Frieze Abu Dhabi will take place in November 2026. The city’s department of culture and tourism announced the partnership on Friday. The news coincides with the official acquisition of the fair business by Mari, a new company set up by Ari Emmanuel after Endeavour, the former owner of Frieze, was purchased by private equity firm Silver Lake in March. The Abu Dhabi event will be the ninth Frieze-run fair.
The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. closed on 4 October and will remain so while the federal government shutdown continues, reports the Art Newspaper. After using funds from the previous year to stay open after the shutdown began on 29 September, the Smithsonian Institution – which receives 53 per cent of its funding from the federal government and manages 21 museums in Washington, D.C. and in New York – has also closed as of 12 October. The shutdown is nearing the end of its second week.
The film-maker Ken Jacobs has died at the age of 92. Born in Brooklyn, Jacobs first studied painting under the artist Hans Hofmann – though he did so only briefly, this period left its mark on him; he later referred to his works as ‘Abstract Expressionist films’. Jacobs pioneered the use of altered found footage in his films, producing works such as Star Spangled of Death (2004), a seven-hour work stitching together clips he began collecting in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, Jacobs and his wife, the artist and producer Florence Karpf Jacobs – who died in June – established the Millenium Film Workshop in New York, a non-profit media arts centre providing affordable access to video production and film classes.
Six artists – Matt Black, Garrett Bradley, Jeremy Frey, Tonika Lewis Johnson, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Gala Porras-Kim – are among the 22 recipients of this year’s Macarthur Fellowship, the Macarthur Foundation announced on 8 October. The ‘genius’ grant worth $800,000 over a five-year period aims to ‘identify extraordinarily creative individuals with a track record of excellence in a field of scholarship or area of practice’. In other award news, the Dutch artist and co-founder of the architectural studio OMA Madelon Vriesendorp has been awarded the Soane Medal for her ‘lasting contribution to architecture and the legacy of the designs, images and paintings she has created’. Founded in 2017, the award recognises individuals who have ‘furthered and enriched the public understanding of architecture’.