The Stedelijk is renewing its collection presentation to focus more closely on theme. Implemented in three phases, the rehang will highlight work by international artists and designers who question traditional modes of thinking and offer new perspectives. Phase one, Tomorrow Is a Different Day, Collection 1980-Now, is now open, and part two of the redesign will be inaugurated soon. The third and final stage of the new presentation, art and design before 1950, debuts later this year.
Everyday
‘Everyday’ shows how art gradually draws closer to everyday life as artists begin to use mundane materials, actions and events. Sculptor Jackie Winsor works with rope, Bruce Nauman turns simple actions into video work and Stanley Brouwn elevates something as simple as asking for directions to art. Others, like Claes Oldenburg, and Tetsumi Kudo, use ordinary objects. Robert Rauschenberg even works with waste materials. Artists also witness the impact of mass media on perception and stereotyping, apparent in works by Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Bloom, and Hans Eijkelboom.
Someday
‘Someday’ captures the idealism of those decades: in Homo Ludens, Constant explores play as a central element in culture and society, Ben d’Armagnac founds a commune that inspires Louwrien Wijers’s poetic word sculptures. Space travel is hugely influential; astronaut William Anders photographed the Earth, creating an emblem of our planet’s vulnerability, and gave flight to a host of Space Age-inspired designs conceived by such creative minds as Václav Cigler, JVC, Wim Crouwel and Peter Ghyczy.
Other Stories
Displaying familiar artworks in an unfamiliar context, ‘Other Stories’ tells narratives that have yet to be explored. Visitors can finally enjoy one of our biggest public favourites, the rapturous La perruche et la sirène, by the French artist Matisse.
The work enters into conversation with the abstract flower forms of the American Ellsworth Kelly, and with paintings by the Haitian artists Robert Saint-Brice and Gesner Abelard, whose work also offers a semi-figurative celebration of nature.
