Play Van Abbe. Part 3: The Politics of Collecting - The Collecting of Politics

The Politics of Collecting - The Collecting of Politics is the third part of the Play Van Abbe programme. In this part, the focus is on what it means to collect and archive visual cultural memories. It invites artists to show their own forms of collecting and their subjective interpretations of "political moments" or events that shape our present. The museum also maps out what a collection tells us about the time in which it is established and develops further the radical reconstructions of historic display and interpretation systems that were first shown in Play Van Abbe Part 2.

The Politics of Collecting and vice versa The exhibition features artists who have tried to wrest the possibility to be political from the mechanisms of collecting. In many artworks, historical moments are seen through personal experience or interpretation and well known (media) images are combined with personal diaries, documents, and photos. Given the lack of suitable institutes or appropriate forms of knowledge collection, artists are sometimes forced to create their own, partial, art narratives, archives and collections. Through this, they search for their own historical trajectories, piece together interrupted narratives and forge new or particular identities.

Artists in the exhibition are Denmark, Michal Heiman, Hannah Hurtzig, Zofia Kulik, Lia Perjovschi, Sean Snyder, Lidwien van de Ven, and Akram Zaatari. In addition, the politics behind the Van Abbemuseum collection and the former state collection of Eindhoven artists will be presented alongside works from the Contemporary Art Museum Palestine (CAMP).

Time Machines Reloaded The existing exhibition Museum Modules will be reactivated under the name Time Machines – Reloaded. Artists have been invited to make interventions throughout the period of Play Van Abbe Part 3. These projects will animate the existing reconstructions of significant moments in museum history including the Raum der Gegenwart and São Paulo Museum of Art. Artists and curators include Museum of American Art Berlin, Wendelien van Oldenborgh and Grant Watson, Kai-Uwe Hemken, Jakob Gebert, Florian Schneider and Daniel Miller.

What's next: Play Van Abbe Part 4 The fourth and final part of the Play Van Abbe programme is called The Tourist, the Pilgrim, the Flaneur (and the Worker). It will investigate the role of being a visitor to the museum and seek to intensify that experience. This final part will run from February 2011.

Curators The Politics of Collecting, The Collecting of Politics: Christiane Berndes, Remco de Blaaij, Galit Eilat, Diana Franssen. Time Machines – Reloaded: Christiane Berndes, Galit Eilat, Diana Franssen, Steven ten Thije.

Play Van Abbe
Part 3: The Politics of Collecting - The Collecting of Politics
Kuratoren: Christiane Berndes, Remco de Blaaij, Galit Eilat, Diana Franssen, Steven ten Thije

Künstler: DENMARK , Michal Heiman, Hannah Hurtzig, Zofia Kulik, Lia Perjovschi, Sean Snyder, Lidwien van de Ven, Akram Zaatari, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Grant Watson, Kai-Uwe Hemken, Jakob Gebert, Florian Schneider, Daniel Miller