Verbeke Foundation — Attraction in Stekene

Let me start off by saying, if it were an option, I would be giving this place zero stars - negative stars even; however, I really feel the need to share my thoughts, hence the undeserved single star.

A lot of people tout this place as "kid friendly," but I need everyone to know that for yours and your childrens safety, please DO NOT touch the taxidermy. Taxidermy specimens have a history and potential of having been sprayed with pesticides that contain heavy metals, such as arsenic. A lot of the specimens are not behind glass and are at child height and not behind ropes. If you take away anything from this post, please hear this. It is very dangerous to touch these kinds of specimens.

As someone who works in the museum and art space, I found this collection in unacceptably atrocious condition. Most of the "collection" is taxidermy-centric, which I will also touch on in a minute, but a lot of these "works" are quite literally rotting. This building does not have the proper climate controls to be showing taxidermy or other animal-product based works. You can quite literally smell death. And all of them have collected spiderwebs, dust, debris, and have suffered being touched repeatedly by visitors, thus loosing fur or hair.

TRIGGER WARNING (animal cruelty): a lot of the exhibits do not show "regular" taxidermy of scientific specimens. There is a whole section dedicated to an artist who made composite creatures of various animals sewn together. Another quite literally placed a rotting, dismembered cow carcass into different boxes and allowed them to decay for "arts sake". Said sadist, I mean artist, claimed the exhibit was to explorer topics of life and death, but really this place as a whole is shrouded in death in every corner. And the icing on the cake? There are live birds in far too small cages less than a few meters from their taxidermy ancestors.

In conclusion, the whole space and its energy felt heavy, sickening, and deeply sad. There is no respect paid to the animals used to make these works of "art," and it feels morally wrong on my part to have even paid to...

If you don't own a car, it may not be worth taking the risk to visit this place. Although the website provides instructions on using public transportation to reach the museum, it fails to mention that at the end of your journey, you will need to walk along the highway without a sidewalk.

Furthermore, once you arrive at the museum, the art exhibits can be problematic, mainly centered around deceased animals. I have no issue with artists using the remains of animals that have already died to create their art. However, it becomes deeply troubling when artists resort to killing animals solely for the purpose of creating their pieces. For example, I saw a "painting" made of dead flies, which is both unsettling and unnecessary.

The experience at the museum is not as enjoyable as I had hoped. The place has an unpleasant smell, and some of the artworks seem gimmicky, seemingly designed only to shock visitors. On a positive note, the open-air pieces are the most captivating, providing a breath of fresh air amidst the otherwise disappointing atmosphere. It's unfortunate that the museum appears to be somewhat neglected, given the friendly nature of the staff...

SPECTACULAR!!! Anyone serious/curious about art - especially boundary-pushing, challenging work that employs unusual materials and methods MUST visit Verbeke. And if you're lucky, as I was, you might also meet Geert Verbeke, the founder and genius behind this foundation. A few tips if you do decide to visit and you're coming from Antwerp and do not have a car: book two Uber Reserves (one to get you there and one for the return trip). It's what I ended up doing and it worked like a charm and made the whole journey easy. Also, based on the weather plan to do the outdoors or indoors first to reflect if it might rain or not. I have had a wonderful two weeks in Antwerp visiting museums, Axel Vervoordt's gallery in the Wijnegem, the Middelheim Sculpture Park - all superb but the Verbeke experience is top of the...