A change of director at the Swales Museum tells the story of 2022

Successful museum director Ralf Küning left the Musée de Fundatie in Swollen this year because of a difficult management style. According to Philip Van Din A common issue in 2022 is the year we worry about things that don’t get much attention.

Last Monday, the first working day of 2023, Beatrice von Bormann started in her new position: director of the Museum de Fundée in Swolle. Born in Berlin, Netherlands, from the age of three, art historian, since 2017 ‘curator’ (the word ‘conservator’ became inadequate for some years) in the Netherlands and abroad at the once famous Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

And why should Zwolle? ‘I’ve been thinking for some time that I want to be a museum director. At first you doubt it will work, but over the years I’ve seen how well it goes with colleagues who take the same course of action. He’s been careful about his projects and intentions in Zwolle – anyway, there’s a lot of attention paid to female and non-Western art and artists, but that’s almost redundant to say these days. De Fundatie’s supervisory board said some time ago that it was looking forward to his visit and was optimistic about the museum’s future under his leadership. So everyone is happy?

‘Safety in the workplace’ is at stake

Her predecessor, Ralf Keuning (61), was several years older than Beatrice von Bormann, but was much younger when she was appointed director in 2007. Also an art historian and with a resume befitting his age. The board of trustees advised him to ‘put the museum on the map’. You could say that Kuening has done a good job. Annual visitor numbers rose from 30,000 to 250,000. There were several exhibitions focusing on media within and outside the art department. And he managed to persuade the well-known architect Hubert-John Henket to build a spectacular extension (a kind of egg on top of the museum), which was opened by Queen Beatrix in 2013.

Keuning scored low among self-proclaimed art enthusiasts. Because he organized exhibitions with famous artists, but according to critics – how can I say – probably not in the museum. But we owe it to Kuening’s ‘sandwich formula’ (you hook people with one project so they find another) and to exhibitions by artists like Neo Rauch, John Hartfield and George Grosz. On a low budget, he’s not bad in the procurement department either.

But at sixty, Keuning disappeared through the back door. This is because he was found to have used a ‘tough management style’ during the border crossing year and ‘safety in the workplace’ was at risk. So a Matthijs van Nieuwkerkje. Nothing is indecent, anything we call “crossing the line” is #MeToo nowadays. But he’s not that nice, sometimes stupid, and at least not generous with compliments to the staff.

Yeah, that’s not good these days. Whether you’re putting a museum on the map or creating a TV show you watch every day. So Ralf Keuning came to the conclusion that he ‘has room’ in ‘good consultation’ with the supervisory board. [wil] A new phase in the development of the museum.

Expressionism also succumbs to colonialism in an art museum

In the last months of 2021, the Stedelijk Museum dedicated fourteen rooms to the famous German Expressionists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde. It covers only the period 1908-1918. I am a fan of their bright color and mostly green work. So I went to the Stedelijk with full expectations, not realizing that I should have researched the title of the big exhibition better: Kirchner and Nolde: Expressionism. colonialism. There were paintings to be admired, but they drowned in a sea of ​​photographs and pamphlets and endless conversations in which all sorts of things were ‘explained’. And Expressionism was the trailer of colonialism.

Both painters were inspired by the inhabitants of former German colonies and were black or dark – in other words, colored. And so it was painted. The organizers of the exhibition had no idea that Kirchner and Nold did this out of love for their models. It is explained in endless academic texts that this is not acceptable.

Many of the rooms displayed items we would have called ‘native art’ in days gone by: stools and crockery. They were not stolen, but bought by both artists in the colonies for their appreciation of the art. But today such a thing is called ‘cultural appropriation’ or rather, ‘cultural appropriation’.Cultural appropriation‘, because this concept comes from America.

Say ‘sorry’ at least three times. It also ended up in some unsuspecting newspapers in this regard. For completeness: In the late 1930s, both artists’ works were declared ‘degenerate art’ by the Nazis and some of Kirchner’s works were destroyed.