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, external presentations and your-space.

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:

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.

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?

• Why did the museum choose to show the work of such an unknown artist as Andrzej Wróblewski? Do you want to create a kind of hype around him in the Netherlands, putting him on the same level as a painter like Van Gogh?

• Are artists and designers two different things?

• Do you think artists have some sort of prophetic vision of the future? How can this be shown through an artwork?

• In an interview Charles made a mistake about the Kandinsky in the Rudi Fuchs exhibition, which was a Bart van Leeck…

• The title, Play Van Abbe: what is so playful about the VAM? Is enjoyment what the museum’s work is actually about?

• 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?

• Didn’t Charles simplify art in the interview we played via this web channel in Part 1? Do you really think that this kind of simplification will encourage an intelligent approach to the museum experience?

• As an artist, would there be a possibility where we could meet each other and I could introduce my work?

• 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?

• Could a gemeentemuseum work without external funds?

Ask a question:

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