A dialogical tour through the exhibition The Making of Modern Art with Quinsy Gario and Steven ten Thije, at Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, The Netherlands).
Between 2017 and 2020, the Van Abbemuseum is hosting a series of projects around the exhibition The Making of Modern Art. This exhibition combines modern masterpieces from the Van Abbemuseum collection – by Mondrian, Picasso, Sol LeWitt, Kandinsky and Léger – with an experimental story that re-tells the 'making of' modern art. Through a set of specially-designed atmosphere rooms, modern art is set in the broader social and political zeitgeist of the 'modern', and its links with darker parts of modernity's histories.
Steven ten Thije, co-curator of the exhibition (with Christiane Berndes and Charles Esche), spoke with Quinsy Gario, a visual and performance artist of Dutch-Caribbean descent. They conversed through the exhibition, rethinking perceptions of modernity, the framing of aesthetic value, the idea of progress, the impacts of trade and wider social, political and economic contexts of the 'modern' era. They also addressed the context of this collection in relation to the Netherlands' place within the modern – domestically, within Europe, and in relation to imperial projects.
Recorded at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 27 April 2017
Video production: Ron Eijkman
Exhibition: The Making of Modern Art, 29 April, 2017 to 3 January, 2021
Curators: Christiane Berndes, Charles Esche, Steven ten Thije
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–Van Abbemuseum
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‘The Soils Project’ is part of an eponymous, long-term research initiative involving TarraWarra Museum of Art (Wurundjeri Country, Australia), the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, Netherlands) and Struggles for Sovereignty, a collective based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It works through specific and situated practices that consider soil, as both metaphor and matter.
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