Art on Display 1949-69
3 October 2020 - 5 June 2021
How do we present art? And how do we look at it, as museum visitors? Most of us immediately focus our attention on the artwork itself, unaware that how we encounter it has been carefully staged by a designer. In contrast, Art on Display 1949-69 focuses less on the artworks themselves, and more on the way they are presented.
The exhibition brings together some of the most progressive post-war exhibition designs by architects in the form of 1:1 reconstructions: a unique opportunity to experience and compare these radical architectural approaches in person. It features displays by Carlo Scarpa, Franco Albini and Franca Helg, Lina Bo Bardi, Aldo van Eyck, and Alison and Peter Smithson.
The 1949-1969 period was characterised by the search for a new relationship between art and the public, with fresh roles for art and cultural institutions. Enlightening people and democratising art were among the aims of this new ethos. The chosen case studies translated these ideas into the pursuit of a direct, personal relationship between the visitor and the artwork, simultaneously raising architectural, museological and social issues.
However, the exhibition designs do not provide a single solution. Sometimes, a solitary work is displayed alone in a quiet, focused environment. Other installations aim to achieve a sense of immersion, or confound conventions and expectations to provoke a spontaneous encounter – in a labyrinth, for example. Various displays create an intimate one-on-one encounter with the artwork, while others set the stage for a communal experience.
Gulbenkian partnership
Art on Display 1949-69 came about thanks to an invitation from the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon to develop the exhibition together.
The dozens of paintings and sculptures displayed in the reconstructions are from the collections of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. Pieces from these collections have never been shown in the Netherlands before. Exhibits include 18th- and 19th- century works from the private collection of the British-Armenian businessman and philanthropist Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, and works by modern Portuguese and British artists, including Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Terry Frost and John Hoyland, from the Modern Collection.
