‘Verlust der Mitte’ presents the artworks that were purchased during the formation of S.M.A.K. They are the foundation of the museum’s collection and the result of more than fifty years of collecting by various parties: the Museum of Fine Arts (from 1957 to ‘75), the Association for the Museum of Contemporary Art (from 1957) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, which has been known as S.M.A.K. since 1999 (from 1975). In his speech on the occasion of the first presentation of the museum’s collection, curator Henry Lecube described it as follows: “The collection is unique of its kind. It has nothing to hide, knows no secrets and owes nothing to anyone except its founders.”
