The ICC is the first institution of contemporary art in Flanders. It is founded in the afterbirth of museum contestation and closes in 1998 when museums of contemporary art become an established fact. During the seventies and the early eighties, the ICC is an intermediary between a progressive art praxis and the ill-at-ease public, as well as an alternative platform for the production and the presentation of recent conceptual art, installations, video, happening and performance. The I.C.C. in its initial period can be seen as the immediate precursor of M HKA.