Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst

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Jürgen Partenheimer, La robe des choses, S.M.A.K, 2002

The Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (commonly abbreviated as S.M.A.K., translated as City Museum for Contemporary Art) is a relatively new museum located in the outskirts of Ghent, Belgium, and is renowned both for its permanent collection (Karel Appel, Francis Bacon, Panamarenko, Andy Warhol, etc.) and for its provocative exhibitions.

The new museum opened to the public on 7 May 1999. The collection concentrates on international developments in art after 1945, and was based upon works collected by the Contemporary Art Museum Association (created on 8 November 1957 at the instigation of Karel Geirlandt) and the Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst (set up in 1975 as the first Belgian museum devoted to contemporary art, housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, with Jan Hoet appointed as director). Current directors are Philippe Van Cauteren (art director) and Sven Jacobs (business director)