THE MUSEUM AS NETWORK
Our ambitions as a museum are not confined to within our walls but extend well beyond them. Besides our programmed exhibition, education and collection activities, we take part in external projects together with other institutes, initiatives and individuals. In effect, we form part of a national and international network of players in the contemporary art world.
Together with our partners in this network, we engage in projects – often long-term in character – aimed at raising understanding and provoking discussion of contemporary art in relation to the world at large.
Check for more information on these collaborations: networks, blogs and external presentations.
Charles Esche wins ECF Routes Prinses Margriet Award
The Van Abbemuseum is delighted with the announcement that the 4th ECF Routes Princess Margriet Award is offered to its director Charles Esche. The Award of 25.000 Euros, initiated by the European Cultural Foundation, will be presented at an official ceremony in Brussels on 19 March 2012. The independent Jury praised Esche for his exceptional leadership in rethinking centers and museums of contemporary art as public spaces that show us the power and value of art in engaging with the contemporary world.
With this award, ECF wishes to enhance the unique role of the arts in challenging cultural divisions in Europe and to show how cultural change-makers can shift our perceptions, taking us beyond our comfort zones and along new ‘routes’. The Routes Award is an initiative of the ECF in cooperation with the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the generous support of the Rabobank Foundation. The other award winner is the Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah.
Read more in the ECF press release.
Charles Esche: "I am delighted to receive the Award because it is a clear recognition of our museum policy. We have developed new models for how a city art museum can relate to the local and international communities in the 21st century. I also really appreciate the European dimension of the Award, because just at this moment we need to ... out common interests in Europe and the world.
In my opinion the museum of the future is a dispersed museum that reaches beyond its walls to meet its audience. Besides a solid base in Eindhoven, we work internationally and share our knowledge with other institutions. In this way, we create a new awareness of the potentiality of art to inspire our imagination."
Polish Pavillion Venice Biennial
On this years 54th Venice Biennial, Poland is represents the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana with the exhibition …and Europe will be stunned. The exhibition is centered on the film Zamach (2011) and was co-curated by Van Abbe guest-curator Galit Eilat. Zamach is the last part of the trillogy, which revolve around the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), a political group that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers. The Van Abbemuseum has in its collection the first two films of the trilogy – Mary Koszmary (2007) and Mur i wieża (2009) – and as such has been a long-time supporter of JRMiP.
Read here a conversation between Yael Bartana, Galit Eilat and Van Abbemuseum director Charles Esche on the website of the exhibition.
Baltan in the Bus Stop - De Stijl vs RGB
On a yearly basis since 1990, the ‘Rietveld Bus Stop' Foundation invites someone from the art world to develop a project for the Rietveld Bus Stop at the Stadhuisplein in Eindhoven. This year they invited Christiane Berndes, curator at the Van Abbemuseum. She worked with Baltan Laboratories, and together with Angela Plohman, director of Baltan, they invited artists Geert Mul and Maurer United Architects to present their vision on the significance of Rietveld and De Stijl today. They transformed the bus stop into a beacon for the media era. The project is installed for one year, starting November 6, 2010.
Mul and Maurer United were inspired by the map of Eindhoven made out of mosaic tiles located on the wall under the roof of the shelter. It is one of the first city maps in public space. The square tiles from which the map is constructed give the image a pixellated character that echoes the early imagery of the computer age. In this design, Rietveld strayed from the typical red, yellow and blue colours of De Stijl. With the colours he chose to use (red, green, blue), he inadvertently made a connection to the television and computer age.
In the column next to the shelter, Mul and Maurer placed images of universal worldviews and colour systems. They juxtaposed them with images of the practical counterparts of the colour systems in our daily lives: the screen, the television, the CD and the Pantone colour wheel. Furthermore, they replaced the original fluorescent lights in the column with LED lights in red, green and blue. Through the colour change of the LED lights, various layered images are made visible on the column.
Gerrit Rietveld’s Design
In 1962 the renowned Dutch architect, graphic designer and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld designed an advertising column with a shelter for the City of Eindhoven. The design was only produced after Rietveld’s death in 1964, but for various reasons was never used for its originally envisioned purpose. As a result, as years went on, no one could remember why the structure existed and who had made it. Like so many objects in public space, it lived on in anonymity.
At the end of the 1980s, the Rietveld structure was rediscovered and received a new location and a new function. It never actually became a bus stop either, but did become a place where artists, designers and architects could show their work or realise a special project. Since 1990, Piet Hein Eek, Robert van Rixtel, Henk Visch and John Körmeling, among others, have been invited to develop a project here.
This project was made possible thanks to the support of the Social Development department of the City of Eindhoven.
Brian Holmes publication
Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society contains a selection of texts and essays by the writer Brian Holmes hat engage with the possibilities and problematics of geopolitics and geopoetics. Holmes is a crucial contemporary writer and thinker whose insight into current social and political developments and how they relate to artistic processes opens up a new field of “geocritique”. The examples he cites extend across Latin America, Europe and Asia, where he looks at networks, artworks, films, institutions and protest movements for signs of how future progressive strategies might be shaped. The texts here are connected in part with the long-term collaborative research project Continental Drift.
Escape the Overcode: Activist Art in the Control Society is published by the Van Abbemuseum in collaboration with WHW, Zagreb, as the second publication in the Van Abbemuseum Public Research Series. This series is dedicated to putting new knowledge about the political possibilities of art and its institutions into the public domain. The museum collaborates with writers, curators, activists and other cultural organisations who share its ambitions to speculate on the possible social roles of art and its potential to help us imagine the world otherwise. The books are intended to serve as inspirational sources for future developments as well as a record of individual responses in the field of art.
Top performers are made not born
made has been created for talented professionals who occupy key positions in companies and institutions in and around Eindhoven. The members of made come together six times per annum in a context of art, music and design. They form a varied network, a community of inspiration and talent.
made (music art design experiences) is an initiative of Muziekcentrum Frits Philips and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven’s two leading cultural institutions who have joined forces for this purpose.
made was established, firstly, to give professionals from companies and other organizations opportunities to develop their talents in inspiring surroundings. Secondly, it supports young, talented musicians and artists on their way to the top of their fields.
You will find out about what made membership implies for a company, and why it is so worthwhile to participate, on www.madefortalent.nl.
made is made possible by:
Q&A Play Van Abbe - part 4
• There are many realities in art, for example an artist saying “a good artwork is an artwork that is sold”. Why do you never discuss this in your museum?
• What is your vision about the future of museums in general; what will be changed (or what do you expect that will change) in say, 2035?
• What does it mean that the Van Abbemuseum is collecting relationships instead of collecting objects?
• I have an artwork that I want to donate to the museum, how can I do this?
• Do you really believe that these uninspired exhibitions help to make people enjoy and love art?
• Why did you choose these visitor roles in Play Van Abbe Part 4?
• In the fourth part of Play Van Abbe the museum focuses on the visitor. What do you expect from this visitor?
• Why should I play a role when I visit this exhibition of Play Van Abbe Part 4?
• Why does the museum want to disperse itself throughout the city? Why not just stick to the museum building?
• What is the use of art? Or is there no use?
• Invite from Charles Esche to participate in this Q&A during Play Van Abbe.
Q&A Play Van Abbe - part 3
• Interesting title. Why does the museum talk about politics/politiek? Because it is a very actual subject in the Netherlands?
• Why is this exhibition a part of Play Van Abbe?
• Referring to the work of Michal Heiman: in your opinion, are the Madonna and Jesus also politically engaged?
• Why is this exhibition so dominated by East European politics and art, and so little obvious focus on our own Western politics?
• Why do you say that collecting is used as a ‘strategy’ to create an image of a social situation?
• Does the museum itself also have a political standpoint?
• Could you say that the museum is objective?
• What do you expect from the visitor?
• Is the upper floor of the museum still the same? It seems like it never changes.
• Nowadays, the Van Abbemuseum has a different approach to mediation. Could you tell us about it?
• What kind of relationship does the Van Abbemuseum want with the public?
• Why does the Van Abbemuseum always stick its neck out? This could be illustrated by the research exhibition where the dossiers aren’t actually complete.
• Don't you think art should speak for itself, and when it doesn't, is it that it was not that good to begin with?
• Do you think that the museum could do an exhibition about the subject 'twins'?
• Why does the museum do something like the 'Wisseling'?
• Invite from Charles Esche to participate in this Q&A during Play Van Abbe.
Q&A Play Van Abbe
• Why does the museum copy an artwork? Is that allowed?
• What is the relationship between the BankGiroLoterij and the Van Abbemuseum?
• Why would a museum choose to work with a lottery?
• Why does the museum show museum models? Isn’t that a bit boring?
• Why does the museum have white walls anyway?
• Are artists and designers two different things?
• Where can someone buy the new book by Brian Holmes?
• What does the Van Abbemuseum think about white walls?
• Why are you encouraging us to think about examples of museums from the past?
• Do you think the art world is separate from the commercial world?
• What do you think about a live speaker in an exhibition?
• Do you personally like the idea that the Van Abbemuseum is a civic institution – a gemeentemuseum?
Q&A Play Van Abbe - part 1
• Change Over periods?
• When do the Change Over periods take place?
• Why the title Play Van Abbe?
• Why the title Play Van Abbe? (take 2)
• Why these questions about Play Van Abbe now? Why not 10 years ago in the 20th century?
• If there's no role, would you close the doors?
• Does the museum become a children's playground too?
• What do you think of the exhibition of the former director Rudi Fuchs?
• What happened in 1989?
• Do YOU understand all the artists?
• Why do artists make video and other stuff?
• Why do you have texts on the wall? Why did you invite Nedko Solakov?
• Why do you show work of Dan Flavin in combination with a series of portraits?
• What could art mean for technology?
• What is the meaning of art?
• What is fun about the Van Abbemuseum?
• Why is it so difficult?
• Invite to Q&A Play Van Abbe - Charles Esche