Van Abbemuseum vitrine: selection Piet Hein Eek - at Van der Valk Hotel Eindhoven

Together the more than 3.000 contemporary artworks of the Van Abbemuseum form the collection of the city of Eindhoven. Sometimes they pop-up at unexpected places. On 23 April 2018 a unique collaboration between Van der Valk Hotel Eindhoven, the Van Abbemuseum and designer Piet Hein Eek will start. In a vitrine, designed and made by Eek, a part of the museum's collection will be on show. This vitrine, a glass cart, has a central position in the entrance hall of Hotel Eindhoven.

There will be regularly changing exhibitions for which prominent people from Eindhoven and the region make a choice from the collection of the museum. The display case with the choice of the first guest curator, Piet Hein Eek, was unveiled on Monday, April 23.

The choice of Piet Hein Eek

Piet Hein Eek was enthusiastic about the invitation to be the first guest curator for the vitrine at Van der Valk Hotel Eindhoven: “Today one of the great challenges is to not only be a museum inside your own building but also outside. So people will see an experience art in a different way. And I think Van Abbemuseum is a pioneer when it comes to that. "

Piet Hein Eek chose chose to show only one work: Char M.K. by Jean Tinguely. It's a machine made of scrap metal, a sheet of wood, wheels, v-shaped wires and systems of ballbearings. The whole work is painted a matt black. The machine has an electric motor with which the public can operate the machine by pressing a button so that the machine drives to and fro on the pedestal, squealing and creaking. A large arch-shaped sheet of wood moves up and down. Tinguely was fascinated by machines and saw them as a symbol for modern existence. They could provide comfort, but could also be threatening when they took over power from people. Tinguely’s machines were also like creatures. He explained: “They’re free, ok, they’re merry, but they’re also desperate. They are condemned to constantly make the same movement in a sort of limited area.”