The pilgrim, the tourist, the flâneur (and worker)
The Pilgrim, the Tourist, the Flaneur (and the Worker) is the fourth and final part of the Play Van Abbe programme. The exhibition presents a selection of important works from the museum's collection together with several guest artists. Visitors are invited to play a role whilst visiting the museum; the roles are the pilgrim, the tourist, the flaneur and the worker. By offering these classical roles, the museum seeks to focus directly on the visitors themselves and the way they experience art, rather than to thematise the artworks themselves.
The roles
The museum focuses on the criteria that visitors often use to make judgements about art. These criteria have become more complex and uncertain over the last years and are certainly no longer limited to the old measures of beauty and truth. The title of the exhibition describes possible roles that a museum visitor can play when looking at an artwork or exhibition. Each of these roles experiences the museum in a different way and each will have their own 'tools' to explore the museum. Roles are never fixed and visitors can change them during their visit, or revisit rooms in a new character. Neither do they represent a hierarchy of experience and, in fact, each might be said to fill a lack in the others.
On a spiritual journey, the pilgrim seeks revelation through contemplative observation. In contrast, the tourist takes a break from daily routines, and looks for the experiential and authentic. Wandering without a goal, the flaneur is open for everything while committed to nothing. The more active position of the worker can be approached from any role. The worker is the producer of new stories and meaning, and in this role, the visitor can leave behind feedback and commentary for those who come after.
The roles are not meant to clarify whether something is good or bad art, but open up new perspectives for a visitor on the artworks, the exhibition and the museum as a public place for experience and exchange.
The artworks
Featuring works from the collection from Gerrit van Bakel, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, James Lee Byars, Sarah Charlesworth, Thierry De Cordier, Robert Delauney, Braco Dimitrijević, Marlene Dumas, Barry Flanagan, Hamish Fulton, Douglas Gordon, Jenny Holzer, Anselm Kiefer, Richard Long, Klaus Mettig, Piet Mondriaan, Deimantas Narkevičius, Pablo Picasso, David Robilliard, Martha Rosler, Allen Ruppersberg, Katharina Sieverding, Ulay / Abramović, Jan Vercruysse, and Andy Warhol.
Special guests in the exhibition are Erwin van Doorn with Inge Nabuurs, Surasi Kusolwong, Cristina Lucas, Oliver Ressler, Marko Peljhan en Yang Zhenzhong.
Curators
Charles Esche, Christiane Berndes, Galit Eilat, Diana Franssen, Steven ten Thije.
The Van Abbe Museum is open from Tuesday / Sunday, 11:00 to 17:00.
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
Tel.: +31 (0) 40 238 10 00
Fax: +31 (0) 40 246 06 80
E-mail: info@vanabbemuseum.nl
Adults: € 9, - per person
Groups of 10 persons over 65: € 7, - per person
CJP holders, students: € 4, - per person
Museum, Rembrandt only: free admission
With Brabant pass: € 7, -
Children under 12 years: free entry
Access to the library, museum shop and the museum café is free.
First Thursday of the month at 17:00 pm: free admission.
For more information on Play Van Abbe you can visit www.vanabbemuseum.nl
Subsidisers
Play Van Abbe has been realised in part by contributions by the BankGiro Loterij, Province Noord-Brabant, Mondriaan Foundation, SNS REAAL Fonds and VSBfonds.
The Van Abbemuseum, established in 1936, is now one of the most spectacularly designed museums in the Netherlands. In 2003 the existing listed monument designed by architect A.J. Kropholler was thoroughly renovated and integrated within architect Abel Cahen’s design for an architecturally progressive, large-scale complex. This provided the museum with the necessary expansion in terms of floor space and facilities. The Van Abbemuseum is one of a growing number of museums for the visual arts, in the Netherlands and abroad, where collection and presentation as well as architectural design are a token of their distinctive, contemporary character. Cahen’s design makes a prominent contribution to international museum architecture.
The Van Abbemuseum lies on the River Dommel and enjoys a surprisingly natural setting. H.N.S landscape architects envisioned a substantial widening of the river, adding fish ladders and a nature-friendly river bank. This has established an ‘inner lake’ in the embrace of the new building that is overlooked by the museum café and its open-air terrace. The museum café is not only accessible via the main entrance, but can also be reached via the footbridge constructed to the rear of the museum in 2006. This work of art, a small, vivid-pink house with the illuminated words ‘Echt iets voor u’ – ‘Just your kind of thing’ – on the roof is a design by the Eindhoven-based artist and architect John Körmeling. The museum has several of his works in its collection. The shortest covered bridge in the world is an eye-catcher by day or by night. The façade of the new building is clad with natural stone, namely grey Flammet slate from Lapland. This grey shell, which changes in hue from silver-grey to dark anthracite depending on the weather conditions, accentuates the angular, sleek design of the new building, forming an expressive contrast with the light and surprisingly transparent spaces within.
The heart of the Van Abbemuseum is a 27-metre-high tower with inward-sloping walls, onto which every floor opens out. Sweeping flights of stairs and a musical lift form striking vertical traverses. Each floor has its own internal structure, sometimes high and monumental, sometimes modest or surprising in form. Though the museum initially strikes one as labyrinthine, it thereby provides space for intimate presentations as well as large-scale exhibitions and monumental installations. The tower, just like the basement, is treated both as an exhibition space and as a workspace where artists can create work in situ.
The Belgian designer Maarten van Severen created the interiors for a range of public facilities, turning the Van Abbemuseum into a user-friendly hub of expertise furnished with state-of-the-art digital equipment. Employing his restrained style and refined palette of colours to great effect, he realized the educational spaces, the museum shop and the auditorium, which is also available for use by third parties for functions. His highly original design for the library, which extends over three floors around an open well, can rightfully be called a masterpiece of applied art.
