Kim Oosterlinck was vice-rector at ULB in charge of foresight and financing, and professor of finance at the Solvay school. He holds a Solvay commercial engineering diploma, a degree in art history and archeology and is a doctor in economics and management sciences.
Kim Oosterlinck succeeds Michel Draguet at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts
He will have to face two major challenges: managing major renovation work, for perhaps ten years, with room closures, and, on the other hand, remotivating the staff, and this at a time when the probable government led by the N-VA is talking about drastically cutting funding for science policy, and therefore also for federal museums.
How will major works and room closures be carried out?
We will start with the renovation work of the “Extensions”these old and very beautiful exhibition spaces that have been closed for years. It will be necessary to empty them and store the works that are there in the Fin de siècle Museum closed since January. Work will begin after this transfer. At the same time, there will be work at the entrance to the Balat building (the rue de la Régence entrance) which was planned for 350,000 visitors per year; but we are at 700,000. We also plan to renovate the Balat in general (the building of the Museum of Ancient Art where water leaks occur in the rooms). But there is no timetable and funding for this yet. Work outside Balat will begin in 2026 and finish in 2030 and we have obtained the necessary 32 million euros for this. The renovation of Balat will then depend on funding (20 million?), including skills sponsorship. To transfer works from extensions to storage at Fin de siècle Museumyou will have to go through our current temporary exhibition spaces. There will then be a year, 2026, during which we will not be able to hold temporary exhibitions.
What is your philosophy for the museum?
It has an exceptional collection of works by Belgian and foreign artists linked to Belgium such as Marat assassinated of David. As a scientific institution, we must be essential for these artists. The museum must also be exemplary in terms of sustainability, diversity and inclusiveness. I asked the Conservatives to see where we are lacking in these areas. There are periods when we have no or few female artists. Can we fix it or explain why we don’t have one? Or find how to fill these gaps? Our mission is also to present art from the 14th century until today. For now, given the closure of the Museum of Modern Art in 2011 and now that of the Fin du Siècle, if we do nothing, we would not present modern or contemporary art for years! Impossible. To avoid this, I therefore asked that the curators and the educational service rethink the entire course of Balat. It should no longer be seen as a museum of ancient art, but as a museum of fine arts in general, where works from the 14th to the 21st century will be presented. This will be a profound change in the way we think about the museum. This revision will be done gradually. We cannot close the museum all at once. It would be a catastrophe, including budgetary ones. And so the idea is that over the next two years, we will gradually begin to integrate the new rooms.
The museum must be exemplary in terms of sustainability, diversity and inclusiveness.
Do you advocate diversity?
The Forum of the museum, which is the symbolic place when you enter the museum, must have a welcoming dimension for all and reflect that art is bigger than us and includes us all. We should create a route there, put more works there with more diversity. Show our general message there. Diversity also means showing different types of art. For the moment, it’s mainly painting, but there are also works on paper and for the 21st century, installations. I also want the Belgian and Brussels public to re-appropriate the museum and come back regularly to see the richness of our collections. I would like every 2 years to have a theme that leads us to change 10% of our exhibited works. If, for example, 2026 was the year of music, we would have 10% of works related to this theme. It allows our curators to rethink our collections and make scientific advances.
Would this diversity continue after the work?
We could keep this shape afterwards. Rather than having museums that are split by period, have a single Museum of Fine Arts. We would stop the separation Ancient art, Modern art, Fin de siècle. This would allow us to rethink the collections together, to have more dialogues and to avoid that, when we close something, we directly close an entire period.
What future during the work on the Gillion-Crowet Art Nouveau collection loaned to the museum?
One option would be to make it accessible at certain times of the year, two or three weeks per year.
What exhibitions would you like to see?
I would like more exhibitions with a societal scope or linked to our research like the one opening next week: “Drafts”, Sketches (at the same time as Emily Mae Smith at the Magritte museum). From our collections, the exhibition Drafts shows that the sketch can be seen as the artist’s primary creative gesture. We will also try to have exhibitions with slightly different artifacts. The Conservatives really want to be able to get their hands dirty. There will also be major exhibitions in partnership with foreign museums, real partnerships, both scientific and in terms of works of art. Like we did with the one on the Surrealism. The major work will not begin until 2026. We learned this late although it was planned for the end of 2025. I will put the teams to work to try to have an exhibition at the end of 2025.
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Could the museum expand to the Vanderborght and the ING space in Brussels? And what about your other museums: the Magritte, the Wiertz? And the museum restaurants?
These questions of new spaces are open. It all depends on the conditions in which we would take over the premises. Vanderborght depends on Brussels City. What agreement would we find between the federal government and the City? For the moment, I am working without this hypothesis because it allows me to move forward on what I master. The rest will depend on the negotiations. We must also realize that each time we have an additional building, we would have additional maintenance to do. If we have an additional building, where will the funds come from to maintain it and keep it going? The Magritte museum works very well. The Wiertz Museum is close to the European Parliament. We could hold exhibitions there that question, for example, art and democracy, or art and science. The restaurant has been closed for years. We will not reopen it, but we will put the Magritte shop. As for the restoration inside the museum, we will have to relaunch a public market, for the cafeteria which is closed for the moment.
How were internal personnel problems resolved?
I am not anyone’s judge. Sara Lammens has done considerable work to calm things down. The problem of lack of resources is one of the causes of the difficulties since obviously in the trade-offs that had to be made, some felt mistreated because they did not obtain as many resources as they would like and others have some. I try to put in place procedures to clarify things in a more participatory management, and with more transparency on decisions. There have been people who have been very hurt for various reasons, but I am confident. The staff is motivated, extremely qualified and with a very strong attachment to the museum.
A preliminary note has leaked from the negotiations for Arizona with a 50% reduction in subsidies for federal science policy! Should efforts be focused on the ministry (Belspo) more than on scientific establishments? There is also the specter of communitarianization of federal museums?
Ideally, you want to save as little as possible. Within the museum, we have incompressible costs, such as for guards, for security, conservation, restoration. We have already reached the limit of what is possible. The 50% savings are completely unrealistic. Communitization? No, I think we have to realize that the richness of our collections means that we have a vocation to have an international level, to play in the Premier League. Our partners are all leading museums. If this management begins to have community overtones, it would be incomprehensible to the rest of the world. It is an important showcase for all of Belgium. When you have loans all over the world, you show the museum and our researchers. This federal aspect is crucial to keep.
Are there any synergies to be made?
All the directors of large institutions get along very well. We want to work together. And at the moment, the one I work with the most is Sara Lammens. We would like to see what we could put in place to revitalize Mont-des-Arts, with Christophe Slagmuylder (Bozar) and Géraldine David (MIM). Do things together, at night for example.
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