Celebrating a decade of conscientious collecting, a selection from Rabobank's Art Collection will be exhibited publicly for the first time early next year, making Rabobank history. Marieke van Schijndel Historically important Artistas source Art works from the collections of Rabobank Nederland and 17 member banks plus some specially commissioned pieces from artists such as Alicia Framis and Job Koelewijn will go on show for the first time at the prestigious Gemeentemuseum, Fotomuseum and the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art, all in The Hague, from 26 February to 8 May 2005. Background image: Alicia Framis, Moving House for Paraplegics, 2000, color photograph (part of Rabobank Art Collection) When Rabobank started collecting art in the Eighties it was purely for decorative value. All that changed in 1995, when a team led by Marieke van Schijndel, Head of the Art Department at Rabobank Nederland, formally structured the collection. 'Over time, we have been buying key pieces spanning the last 30 years and four generations of leading Netherlands-based artists. The result is a historically important collection following the developments of Dutch art from 1950 on,' Van Schijndel explains. Interestingly, the collection will not be grouped by generation at the exhibition. Instead, a link is made between the ideology of a particular artist's work and similar concepts in both contemporary and earlier pieces by other artists. So, for example, Alicia Framis' work, which comments on social structures and gives an artistic view on urban life, parallels not only Constant's "New Babyion" from the Sixties but also art by contemporaries such as Mark Manders, Meshac Ga ba, and Inez van Lamsweerde. The Word 13

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'RI The Word / The Word' (EN) | 2004 | | pagina 13