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.
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