The Future of Context
What happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
November 9, 2021
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
How often, when entering a public art gallery or museum, do your eyes urgently dart about the space for the first sign of context or framing you can oh-so-casually gravitate towards so that you can understand the works at hand? Being honest, it would be often, if not always.
The role of these art spaces has changed drastically over the past two centuries – along with the public’s expectations of such. Classical painting relied on religious or mythological allegory and metaphor to convey its message, and the public was a very different demographic to what we see today. Long gone are the days where art, painting, and portraiture belonged to aristocracy and the Church, simultaneously symbolic of wealth and power.
With the emergence of contemporary art, the role of curatorship has also diversified and evolved. Curators are the orchestrators of the visual arts, creating an alchemy of compositions to take a visitor through their designated journey. Some are more successful than others, but context is ultimately derived from them as source, to reach the snippets of text and framing that we so actively seek when entering a new art space.
But what happens when prescribed context is removed, or the story is turned on its head?
This is precisely what Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has facilitated by putting its entire collection on display in their newly opened vault, The Depot. With 151,000 artworks on display for visitors to browse through, one has the chance to maraud through each of the 14 storage compartments segmented into 5 different climate areas, thus unveiling a vast botanical garden of canvasses for the public eye.
What is most fascinating about this building is its transparency. Whilst most museums and public galleries have an estimated 90% of their collection under lock and key, Boijmans Museum has opened up its inner workings and let the building’s working hubbub murmur in plain view like a stream flowing through the space, narrowing the distance between visitor and host.
Nearer to home in London, we have a different interpretation of context and narrative in the Whitechapel Gallery’s current exhibitions on display. On the subject of creating one’s own narrative, in Yoko Ono’s participatory MEND PIECE for London, a visitor is encouraged to take a seat at the table and mend as much or as little of the broken pieces of pottery and crockery as they see fit.
MEND PIECE for London draws on the Japanese tradition of kintsugi and, much like the art of growing up, it’s a humbling reflection on the sort of narratives we make and create over and over again as we experience our own life.
In a neighbouring room, we have Damascus-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way. These are evocative works that inspire one’s own imagination and story-making. In Whitechapel’s Gallery 2, Fattal’s figures are embarking on their own journey of metamorphosis (clay to bronze), forcing us to take stock at our own changes and journey. We’re prompted to become protagonists in creating context and narrative for ourselves.
It’s interesting to observe the many ways in which we can interpret context and have enabling art spaces that open up interplay and dialogue, not just between viewer and artwork, but viewer and ecosystem too.
The Depot at Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is now open and tickets must be booked online before entry. You can have a look at the collection online here. The Whitechapel Gallery is also currently open, with Simone Fattal’s Finding a Way on until May 2022, and Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE for London accessible until January 2022.
