#wereldmuseum

[pettybourgeoiz]

Opium tray

[brian-kenny]

timelapse of the 75 foot long free-hand mural I created for the POWERMASK exhibition; curated by Walter Van Beirendonck, at the Wereld Museum in Rotterdam, Holland.

[black-is-no-colour]

Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano, Look 24 from Spring 2015 collection, in the exhibition "POWERMASK – The Power of Masks" at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam from 01 September 2017 to 07 January 2018, curated by Walter Van Beirendonck. Source: E1 Nation Art Projects.

[sallyw3000]

I was honored to have my collage chosen to be the main image to promote the POWERMASK exhibition, curated by Walter Van Beirendonck, at the Wereld Museum in Rotterdam, Holland.  The exhibition is up until January 7, 2018

Title:  Postcard (After Höch), 2007 

[black-is-no-colour]

Exhibition "POWERMASK – The Power of Masks" at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam from 01 September 2017 to 07 January 2018, curated by Walter Van Beirendonck. Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano, Look 24 from Spring 2015 collection. Source: Nico Van Cleemput

[brian-kenny]

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." -Oscar Wilde. #POWERMASK #powermaskBK #wereldmuseum (at Wereld Museum Rotterdam)

[eakdoeseurope]

Amsterdam, day 2, part 1

I started the morning off at Schiphol airport, meeting my mom. I was waiting for quite a while. Although I breezed through passport control yesterday when I arrived, apparently today was a much busier travel day, because she had to wait in line for nearly an hour. Combine that with just having experienced her first ever 10-hour flight, and let's just say she was ready to go to the hotel room and take a nap.

While she did that, I went to the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam, a museum of human cultures that I actually found incredibly well done. Most of the time, non-Western art and artifacts are exhibited in "natural history" museums alongside dinosaur fossils and gemstones, perpetuating the idea that non-Westerners are a "natural" relic of the past.

The Wereldmuseum is an anthropology museum that demonstrates what (contemporary) cultural anthropology really is. Their exhibits are oriented around the legacy of colonialism and the racist opposition between "science" and indigenous knowledge and practice. They combine contemporary artifacts with ancient ones, but not in a way that flattens history. The exhibits frankly discuss colonial oppression and the resistance to that oppression. I was seriously impressed.

They had a room about the racist origins of anthropology, where they had phrenology tools on display. They also had a section on stereotypical representations, and I thought it was funny that they included two Japanese prints that made fun of Dutch people.

A lot of the museum was self-reflexive about the ethical problems with exhibiting cultural artifacts obtained through colonialism. They used to have a Mixtec mosaic skull, but they recently repatriated it to Mexico, and replaced it with an empty display case and an installation about the repatriation process, including the letters that were sent to the Dutch government requesting the return of the skull.

One of their special exhibitions was by Larissa Sansour, a Palestinian artist. I especially liked her project "Archaeology in Absentia," which was linked to her film "In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain." She buried pieces of pottery decorated with traditional Palestinian motifs around Israel and the West Bank, and repurposed munitions casings to carry the coordinates of the locations where the pottery is buried.

The other special exhibit was "Made in China," which explored the history of Chinese innovations and their impact on global trade (and vice versa). This exhibit was also very cool. This ivory carving consisting of 17(!) nested, independently moving spheres was particularly impressive.

I also enjoyed this display of brushes made from different animals' hair, especially since I got to touch them all. I've always wondered what a squirrel feels like, and now I can report that they are very soft. "Chicken hair" is also very soft.

On the first floor they had a series of small rooms that each addressed a "hot topic." I was very moved by this exhibit of bags containing everything that particular refugees took with them when they fled their home countries.

I also really liked the room about climate change, which was focused on the slow disappearance of the Marshall Islands. Small windows cut into the walls allowed you to look at photos and videos of the Marshall Islands, but you could only view pieces at a time.

In case you couldn't tell, I was really impressed with the Wereldmuseum. It's what a cultural anthropology museum should be. It started out like any other colonial project, but the changes they've made are huge. I hope more museums follow suit.

[leanneee2701]

– Wereldmuseum Leiden, The Netherlands

wereld = world