"The Stedelijk Museum is doing well, there is no deep crisis"

The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is not in deep crisis. The resignation of Artistic Director Beatrix Ruf more than a year ago has not damaged the museum's international reputation and has not seriously disrupted relations with sponsors. Museum staff also did not return to Ann Goldstein and Ruf, the last two Artistic Directors. And the city of Amsterdam has no official responsibility for the Stedelijk.

Jan Willem Sieburgh, acting director of Stedelijk for almost a year, approached the presentation of the museum's annual program on Thursday morning to respond to some recent articles of opinion published in Het Parool and of Volkskrant .

"Big words," according to Sieburgh, in which he could not recognize himself and that he "strongly wanted to contradict". In difficult times, the museum's "excellent staff" demonstrated "resilience and professionalism". And during business trips abroad, the director has seen the strong reputation of the museum. Sieburgh: "I am amazed at the warmth I receive and what I receive in foreign museums for the Stedelijk."

Read the NRC analysis of the Stedelijk situation in the middle of this year: The clean slate of the Stedelijk Museum

Before the end of the year, the Stedelijk probably has again a comprehensive supervisory board, Sieburgh announced. In August, the Stedelijk board resigned after a disagreement with the interim director and the company committee about a new role planned for Beatrix Ruf by the board. For a month and a half, the supervisory board consisted of Acting President Truze Lodder and Jos van Rooijen, who had previously overseen the museum.

Art Director

The "procedural reflection" on the new artistic director began, said the president. Sieburgh. After consulting the management and the company committee, the supervisory board began to establish a profile of the new director.

According to Sieburgh, Lodder is also busy with "the completion of the Ruf case". The art director by level had made agreements with the supervisory board party. They will be "perfectly solved," said Sieburgh. At the end of December, the Stedelijk hopes to clarify this conclusion.

Exhibitions

The Stedelijk deliberately gives more attention to female artists in next year's programming. Only 4% of the museum's huge collection is made up of women. But in 2019 is the only major retrospective of the Austrian artist Maria Lassnig who died in 2014. And on November 25 will open a solo presentation of Raquel van Haver, this young painter recently awarded the Royal Prize for painting Free.

The lure of the crowd next year may well be the exhibition announced in September on the art of migrants in Paris in the first half of the last century. The artistic and social development, among others, of Chagall, Picasso and Mondriaan is illustrated in the light of a cultural and political climate in which freedom and cosmopolitanism are in conflict with nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

to attract the new Stedelijk public with various educational programs. We are also working on more diversity among the staff.