SMAK - Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art — Attraction in Ghent

Arts at Citadel Park in Ghent where you can see a fair number of exhibitions showcasing the works of European contemporary artists. Opening Hours are 10-6pm daily and entry fee is €6 per person.

We visited a couple years back and enjoyed the Donogood Tonka by Belgian artist Rinus Van de Velde exhibition at that time. Velde sketches comic like scenes around the wall of a large room, filling in white space with a convoluted narrative, which was oddly enjoyable to read at times. In the middle of the room were installation props from the scenes drawn on the wall. Overall, this was a creative and enjoyable art form that we enjoyed seeing.

Other ground floor artworks were intriguing and worth having a look as well. I enjoyed the flipped VW bug, a handful of other provocatively arranged items and the short films.

Overall, I felt the entry price was a bit steep for the calibre of contemporary arts that were on display but it was decent collection of temporary exhibitions. In the end, this will work for those who enjoy contemporary art. For those with interests in fine art, go next door to the Museum voor Schone Kunsten...

An interesting modern art gallery. Lots of different styles and the main exhibit was all by Belgian artists, which was very unique as you don't hear of many Belgian artists on the world stage, so it's nice to see their work all together. The pricing is a bit odd: perhaps too cheap if you're 25 or under (id needed): €3,50 and then a little too expensive if you're older: €18. Gift shop didn't have the nicest pieces of art in the gallery represented at all which was a shame: it had the usual problem too of charging a lot of money for very simple things such as postcards. Air conditioning in the gallery was hit or miss meaning some rooms were unbareably hot and others a perfect temp. Information about the pieces was generally very good and the rooms were large enough to move around in. Some unusual choices with awkward stairs to certain areas make the gallery slightly less accessible than it needed to be. Overall, very good, and a nice...

I was expecting a lot from Smak, but I came out disappointed. First of all, there was one floor that was not available as they were still rebuilding for a new expo. The remaining floors are not as big, but we still paid a whopping 12 euros per person.. reduce your entrance fee if you are rebuilding for an exhibition to get a fair price/quality ratio in my opinion.

The worst thing that really annoyed me was the woman behind the counter. We were at the shop checking out the posters, and we opened up one as they were not visibly exposed somewhere. The woman came to us very annoyed that we need to pay for it as they cannot use it because it was touched by us.... What about books and all of the other things that people touch in the shop? Are you going to let them pay in case they touch a book? The woman was ridiculously behaving and disrespectful. Only for this I will not come back. This is...