The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (KMSKB) are forced to close the Old Masters department, with works by Rubens and Bruegel, due to staff shortages for six months.
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The Brussels Museum of Fine Arts will open new exhibitions on Pierre Alechinsky and Aboriginal art next week. The Magritte Museum is also accessible, and the four underground floors of the Fin-de-Siècle Museum reopen after six months. On the other hand, the Old Masters department, which is the museum’s international eye-catcher, will close until 15 October. ‘With an eye for the safety of both our visitors and staff members’, it says on the website. The reality is that the museum does not have enough guards to keep all the halls open at the same time. It is obliged to introduce a turn system.
Spokesperson Samir Al-Haddad understands the potential frustration of the public. ‘We would do nothing better than run at full capacity. But the situation is unsustainable: we are missing 35 members of staff, including 20 guards. ‘ The RMFAB, like other federal museums, is struggling with a structural problem: since 2011, the saving waves have been successive, causing the allocation to decrease year after year. The State Secretaries Thomas Dermine and Pierre-Yves Dermagne (both PS), respectively responsible for science policy and work, have a personnel plan for 85 new recruitments on the table. This includes guards, but also personnel for maintenance and administration. Al-Haddad: “Ministers are aware of our partial closure, but nothing will change in the short term.”
This is an operational problem that has been exacerbated by the corona crisis, the respective cabinets say. “The protocol requires one-way traffic and manual disinfection of the visitors and more staff is needed,” says federal government spokesman Laurens Teerlinck. The museum had to make a choice. ‘On the other side, two new exhibitions will open.’
Attracting temporary guards from your own budget is not an option for the museum. The RMFAB saw their visitors decrease drastically last year, even by ninety percent during the first wave. As a result, a lot of income was also lost on ticketing.
VISITFLANDERS, through Minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA), already reacted furiously at the temporary closure of the Old Masters. She regrets the choice, now that visitors from home and abroad have to miss the works of Bruegel, Rubens, Jordaens and Rembrandt.
The museum wants to use the closure of the department to tinker with the lighting and the visitor’s trail.
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