NETWORKS
The networked projects the Van Abbemuseum engages in transcend both artistic and geographical boundaries. This page presents an up to date, transparent overview of the projects that are being developed in collaboration with partners both in the Netherlands and abroad. They are not a part of the regular programme but amount to an extension of the possibilities that exist within the museum.
The projects deal with important changes in contemporary art and consciously link with history, the community and the ensuing sensitivities.
A consciousness of this context, the collective collaboration and the interchange of knowledge form the basis of these networks. However, the form of these networks and the projects that are developed are not predetermined but must spring from a necessity. With projects that range from making exhibitions to organizing lecture series' to publishing relevant articles or books, these networks attempt to engage in an active connection with their environment and to clarify their relevance.
Dutch Art Institute (DAI)
For the past three years the Van Abbemuseum has been giving lectures at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) in Arnhem for a master’s degree for artists who are at the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts. Together with the students, the museum explores relevant and contemporary themes such as autonomy and the place of art in contemporary society.
Useful Art - DAI & Van Abbemuseum in 2013
The Van Abbemuseum's course with the DAI will focus its attention on the core research area of the museum - discussing, problematising and implementing the notion of 'Useful Art'. Art's perceived role in and value to society is changing. With the demise of ideological binaries between east and west, avant-garde art is no longer positioned as a symbol of a liberal, free society. This means the question of art's 'use' or 'use-value' to society has to be re-calibrated - for artists, institutions and the public we address. This allows us to re-think art not as an autonomous activity, detached from the world, but rather as a tool to be used. For the Van Abbe, this means we must consider again our function and role as a public museum for modern ant contemporary art. Drawing on the historical examples of John Ruskin and his nineteenth century 'Mechanics Institute' to contemporary practitioner Tania Bruguera, the notion of art's use and role in society can take on many forms, from aesthetic experience to socially informed practice that functions outside the 'designated' spaces for art. The course 'Useful Art' will include monthly sessions with heads of departments in the museum, including collections, research, exhibitions and mediation who will use the DAI course to consider how the idea of 'Useful Art' affects and influences their roles in the museum. International guest speakers, who are collaborating with the Van Abbemuseum, will be invited to present their research and respond to the work of DAI students. The course will culminate in a project in Eindhoven in July 2013, drawing on the areas explored throughout the year.
Course Coordinator: Nick Aikens
With: Steven ten Thije, Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher, Gemma Medina, Christiane Berndes, Diana Franssen, Daniel Neugebauer and guest lecturers
Museum as Hub in New York
- Image courtesy of the New Museum, New York.
A partnership of five international arts organisations, Museum as Hub is a new model for curatorial practice and institutional collaboration established to enhance our understanding of contemporary art. Both a network of relationships and an actual physical location on the fifth floor of the New Museum Education Center (NYC), Museum as Hub is conceived as a flexible, social space designed to engage audiences through multimedia workstations, exhibition areas, screenings, symposia, and events. Initiated by the New Museum in 2006, this partnership includes Insa Art Space, (Seoul, South Korea); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo; Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art (Cairo, Egypt); and Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, The Netherlands).
SMART Museum Chicago
Located on the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus, the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art houses a permanent collection of over 10,000 objects, spanning five millennia of both Western and Eastern civilizations. The scope of its permanent collections, combined with groundbreaking special exhibitions, a focus on research and teaching by University of Chicago scholars, and distinguished outreach and educational programs geared to both adults and school age children, make the Smart one of the Midwest's most dynamic and innovative educational institutions in the visual arts.
Mission Statement
As the art museum of the University of Chicago, the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art promotes the understanding of the visual arts and their importance to cultural and intellectual history through direct experiences with original works of art and through an interdisciplinary approach to its collections, exhibitions, publications, and programs. These activities support life-long learning among a range of audiences including the University and the broader community.
More info on the website of the Smart Museum.
Comité van Roosendaal
The Comité van Roosendaal is a network connecting contemporary art institutions in the Northern European capital region. The Comité originated in 2006 as an informal discussion forum for subjects of mutual interest and urgency. In 2008, the Comité van Roosendaal formalised its status as an association in order to bring together, discuss, evaluate and further inspire the members’ knowledge and institutional practices. The members aim to broaden their insights in artistic, cultural and political matters and seek means to share these with other colleagues in the global cultural field.
The Comité van Roosendaal brings together diverse institutions and people who are engaged with the research, production, presentation, discussion and memory of contemporary culture. It has a specific focus on the discursive aspects of contemporary art. The Comité’s membership is not based on representative criteria, but has developed organically from a shared sphere of interests*. It has thus evolved into a platform where a multitude of individuals discuss with one another their respective intentions to stimulate intellectual and artistic creativity.
The members of the Comité van Roosendaal are centred in the densely populated and concentrated economic zone spanning Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Brussels and Cologne, that forms the heartland of North-Western Europe. This region has a complex polycentric structure, which in spite of its strong urbanisation (the area holds almost 10 percent of the European population) possesses no dominant metropolitan city. Rather, a federal polyphony has become the norm offering many possibilities for exchange and development. This region is undoubtedly of global economic importance, even given its political divisions and a new understanding of its own connectivity can set cultural and political discussion and activity in motion at various national and regional levels.
The existing platform of exchange within the Comité van Roosendaal has already led to various ambitious collaborative projects and the association will continue to facilitate such bi- or multilateral projects. However, the main focus of the Comité van Roosendaal will now be on the development of strategic synergies over a number of key areas — research, education, public communication, collecting, publishing and cultural politics.
The members of the Comité van Roosendaal meet regularly in expert meetings, occasionally inviting authorities from various related fields, to discuss matters of institutional art practice. The Comité’s practical intentions and recommendations are disclosed by means of best practice examples, advisory documents and policy statements. Although developed through the structure of expert meetings, the Comité seeks to communicate with a broad public and its activities are publicised mainly through its website and a regular newsletter, with a goal to contribute to the understanding of art and put cultural organisations at the intersection of art, culture and society.
The Comité seeks an exchange of ideas with the political arena and the media and will occasionally host meetings with politicians, journalists, critics and sociologists as well as engage and exchange with colleagues from other parts of this region.
*Extension of the committee takes place by mutual agreement and on initiative of the committee.
Legal Notice | © Comité van Roosendaal 2008 - All rights reserved.
If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution
If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, a rolling curatorial platform curated by Frederique Bergholtz and Annie Fletcher (Curator Exhibitions, Van Abbemuseum), launches its new third edition. The departure point for this edition is to explore a conceptual framework of the masquerade.
This can be read in the light of If I Can't Dance...'s continuing exploration of paradigms such as performativity, theatricality and feminism(s), produced together with artists in the form of experimental sketches, performances, readings, exhibitions, enactments etc., since its inception in 2005.Over the next two years, If I Can’t Dance… will have manifestations in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Bilbao, Dublin and Eindhoven, collaborating with Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, de Appel arts centre, Sala Rekalde, Project Arts Centre and the Van Abbemuseum. Keren Cytter, Jon Mikel Euba, Olivier Foulon, Suchan Kinoshita, Joachim Koester and Sarah Pierce are invited to produce new projects that will be developed within the time frame of the nexttwo years, and presented at the subsequent moments when If I Can’t Dance… will visit the institutions mentioned.
SYMPOSIUM RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE REVISITED
L'Internationale
Comprising six major European museums, L’Internationale proposes a space for art within a non-hierarchical and decentralised internationalism, based on the value of difference and horizontal exchange among a constellation of cultural agents, locally rooted and globally connected.
The partners of the European museum confederation L’Internationale are Moderna Galerija (MG, Ljubljana, Slovenia); Museo nacional centro de arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS, Madrid, Spain); Museu d’art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA, Barcelona, Spain); Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA, Antwerp, Belgium); SALT (Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey) and Van Abbemuseum (VAM, Eindhoven, the Netherlands). L’Internationale is supported by complementary partner and associate organizations from the academic and artistic fields.
In 2013 the five-year programme The Uses of Art – The Legacy of 1848 and 1989 (UoA) started. This is a dense programme of exhibitions, symposia, publications, magazines, an online forum, an education platform and staff exchange. UoA concludes in 2017 with simultaneous exhibitions and events activated across Europe.
This follows the two-year project 1957-1986. Art from the Decline of Modernism to the Rise of Globalisation.
Afterall
Afterall is a research and publishing organisation based in London and Los Angeles, of which Charles Esche (director, Van Abbemuseum) is a co-editor and co-founder.
Initiated in 1998, Afterall Journal offers surprising, thoughtful and in-depth analysis of artists' work, contextualised by juxtaposing essays. The journal focuses on contemporary art, always considering its relation to different artistic, social and political situations. Afterall is co-published by Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London and the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, in collaboration with MuHKA, Antwerp.
In April, 2006 Afterall Books was introduced by Central Saint Martins as a complement to the journal's research project. Maintaining the project’s main focus on the work of art and its impact in the wider world, Afterall Books publishes three different series. The first, Afterall Readers, is a collection of survey publications, looking at significant areas of modern and contemporary art practice through the commissioning or reprinting of key texts. Another, The One Work series, is a library of compact books, uniformly designed,which frame one important work of contemporary art using a single text. The third series, focusing on key historical shows and entitled One Exhibition, will be launched in 2009 in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.
Afterall Online features specially commissioned material designed to be both more timeous and idiosyncratic than the journal. Regularly updated content includes reviews from Los Angeles, London and elsewhere, as well as interviews with artists about their art practice, occasional longer essays on theoretical and philosophical topics and artist's projects.
BAK Utrecht
An important partner for the Van Abbemuseum is BAK Utrecht. previous collaborations were the retrospective show on Sanja Ivekovic and Citizens and Subjects. Currently in development is the ellaborate researchprogramme Former West.
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst is a platform dedicated to thinking, researching, producing, presenting, and analyzing contemporary art. In its process of becoming, marking a trajectory from a spontaneous artists’ initiative established in 1989, to today’s contemporary art institute, BAK has served as an advocate for contemporary art. The philosophy of BAK is to make the art of our own time, and its developments towards tomorrow, accessible.
It is the combination of the professional dedication of its people, and a middle-field, flexible operation that makes BAK a distinct place. Our committed team of individuals with different expertise identifies issues for artistic and intellectual analysis, invites art professionals for collaborations, and offers personal involvement and engagement.
The activities of BAK are concentrated in three main areas: research/creative production, presenting, and analyzing.
The area of research and creative production functions both as an extended artist’s studio, and as a space for gathering valuable data and support resources for contemporary art curators, writers, and theorists. BAK initiates partnerships and collaborations with contemporary artists, theorists, writers, curators, and other institutions, who are offered professional support – both in intellectual terms, as well as in relation to production. All the activities of people at BAK, as well as its resources, are then synchronized towards each projects’ needs.
Presentation is a public moment in the development of every project. It can realize itself in various formats accommodating the character of a project. Here BAK functions in the true meaning of its name - basis – as a support structure, flexible enough to sustain diverse activities such as exhibitions, workshops, publications, etc.
In an effort to stimulate discourse on contemporary art, BAK devotes a significant part of its work to the area of intellectual analysis related to its projects, as well as to developments in art and society in general. Various public and semi-public encounters in form of lectures, conversations, symposia, or workshops are being organized, for which BAK attracts a large number of respective practitioners on national and international levels.
BAK provides a basis, which attempts to accommodate various aspects of complex socio-political situations in the contemporary world, and seeks out their artistic re-articulations. One could see BAK as a meeting point for various voices about the everyday; should reality fail to provide enough vision towards the future, BAK tries to create a mental space for examining the potential of art to conceive the world otherwise.
Maria Hlavajova, artistic director
23 February 2003
More info on the website of BAK.
Onomatopee
Progressive and experimental production at walking distance of the Van Abbemuseum.
Onomatopee researches and display's the parameters of our designed culture. Each project both showcases progressive experiences via presentations and exhibits as it enhances innovative ideas via publications and debate. Onomatopee thuss is a roam for wonder, doubt, positioning and repositioning. Their modus operandi lies somewhere in between a commercial gallery and an artist run space; in between a commercial publisher and an underground record label. Onomatopee director Freek Lomme is also guest curator at the Van Abbemuseum.
Editions and issues, that's what Onomatopee is involved with; specializing in poetry, typography, sound art and dedicated to site-specific, contextual projects of which many deal with critical notions on design. Every edition comes with some kind of presentation/exhibition and vice versa. They both produce and artistically manage their projects; they are open to collaborate with other people and organisations, in their own gallery space or elsewhere.