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Indianapolis Museum of Art
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Channels: Talks
Vincent van Gogh is one of the most recognizable artist names in the world, but where does the celebrity stop and the art begin? Join Axel Rüger, director of the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and Dr. Maxwell Anderson, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a conversation about the commercialization of the museum world, the global game of securing exhibitions, and the enduring intrigue of van Gogh.
Axel Ruger is someone who knows the U.S. very well, and who has spent time here, as we'll talk about today. But, comes to us freshly
with a kind of sojourn around the US to re-acquaint yourself with some of the things you haven’t seen in a while and see some more and it's his first visit to our fair city.
And what we are going to start with is just some brief introductory words by Axel, about the museum he directs. Welcome!
Thank you. Thank you very much, Max. Thank you! Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. It’s a great pleasure to be here.
Indeed, it’s the first visit for me to Indianapolis. Not my first visit to the Midwest, I should say. I have actually lived and worked in the Midwest, in Detroit, and we may come back to that
in a little while. But, it is indeed a pleasure, and an honor, to have been invited. Max and I have known each other for a fair number of years, from my very, very early days...
Go ahead and say how many years...
Twenty... actually.
Twenty years!
And the old thing is that I am now speaking about a museum that is fairly young and I understand that the IMA has celebrated its 125th anniversary this year
and we are celebrating our 35th anniversary. So, we are still, you know, the young kid among the big European museums.
I am very pleased to be here and to... Just before we launch into a conversation, I thought it might be useful
to give you a bit of a background about the museum. The Van Gogh Museum. I am showing you on the screen a picture of just a corner of our... of the building, with the famous letters on them,
and then in the background, you can just see peeping behind it, the Rijksmuseum. And the headline of the talk is "Museums, Fame and Money,"
and I think it is this rather interesting that the Van Gogh Museum, in many ways, is a, somewhat, at least in the European context, unusual museum. And for us that, sort of, triangle of these forces,
being a museum, but being, you know, pulled back and forth between the aspects of what a museum is, but also the fame and money. It's particularly intriguing in our case.
And, of course, the fame aspect, I hardly need to emphasize. We were talking about this last night. I hardly ever meet anyone who wouldn't know where the Van Gogh Museum is,
and, obviously, it is the museum devoted to the artist, but the fame is really something that always, sort of,
travels ahead, if you like. Wherever I go, wherever the collection goes, wherever we lend to, you know, the artist’s name and the name of the museum is
certainly very present throughout the world. How... there are a few sort of markers sometimes, how you can sort of gauge how famous really the artist is,
and what sort of world we operate in. It doesn't happen very often that the work of an artist makes it on to the front page of a large national newspaper,
and as you can see, the Independent, and this was a bit more than a year ago, features this painting on its front page. Hardly, any other editorial text, but it says, of course,
"On Sale for the First Time, van Gogh's Final Masterpiece." It was a picture from a private collection, very late work from 1890, by Vincent van Gogh.
It’s, of course, slightly exaggerated, it wasn’t his final masterpiece. We know that he painted it towards the end of his life, but we know, quite certain, from his correspondence,
from his letters, that this is not the last painting. However, it, of course, it gets dressed up, it got huge attention when it came up for sale in New York.
However, it then turned into the van Gogh that nobody wanted. But again, as you can see it makes it onto the front page, this time, of the New York Sun.
So, you know, it is that kind of fame and interest, also really, that we, sort of, you know,
operate with, and deal with everyday. And I have just come, indeed, from Detroit. I went to see the new Detroit Institute of Arts, as it were,
that only very recently reopened after major, major renovation. And, of course, sometime ago, just before the opening,
I stumbled across this ad, "Great Art, New Start." And what does one expect from Detroit Institute of Arts advertising itself?
Of course, the great Beaux-Arts building, the Diego Rivera frescoes, but, of course, they have a van Gogh self-portrait in the collection, and that goes into the ad.
And I was just at the DIA, as I said. And they have on view, at the moment, an exhibition, modern masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The show is called "Monet to Dali,"
so, no van Gogh. But, of course, on the ticket the illustration is, of course, one of the van Gogh’s on display. So, it is always, you know, the artist,
the name recognition of the artist, that is being used and being shown. Against that background of, really, prominence and worldwide recognition,
it is interesting to see how, then, this museum came about and how it operates right now. And so, as I said, I have thought it might be useful to give you a little bit of background
about the museum and I will just take a few minutes. I am showing you on the screen three views. The one on the left is the museum as it was built and opened in 1973,
so 35 years ago. It is the last design by the famous Dutch architect, Gerrit Riedvelt. He unfortunately didn’t live to see the building completed.
And you can also see in front, a phenomenon that we also get, by Dutch people, criticized for a lot, because there is a queue outside the door.
And wherever I go in Holland, people say "Oh, you are the Van Gogh Museum, I never go there," and I say, "Why? You know, we have interesting exhibitions and a fabulous collection..."
"Yeah, but there is always a queue outside." So, it can work in your favor because, you know, it shows that the museum is popular, but at the same time, it can also really
detract people from coming. As I said, the building was opened in 1973 to house the collection and, of course, it grew very, very quickly
and because of the fame of the artist, many parties, many museums, other museums, wanted to work with the van Gogh Museum. The museum started organizing big exhibitions
and at some point, of course, the building wasn’t big enough. And so, on the top right, I am showing you a wing that was added in the back, to the museum,
which was opened in 1999, built by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. And what is fascinating about this project is that
one of the big CEOs of a major, major Japanese insurance corporation came to the Van Gogh Museum, sometime in the eighties,
and he so much fell in love with the museum and with the art of Vincent that he felt he needed to do something for the museum. So, at the end of some negotiation,
he donated... the corporation donated the entire exhibitions wing, which in Europe is almost unheard of. So, that is how the museum acquired a lot of additional space
and ever since that moment, we really have been able to be a player on the international exhibition scene and really have regular rotating displays, without having to remove part of the permanent collection.
And then, on the bottom right, you know, a normal day in the museum, a normal weekday I should say, in the museum. The museum is, by far, the best-visited museum in the Netherlands,
and I would say, also in Europe. It certainly belongs to the, sort of, top whatever... fifteen museums and we receive about 1.5 million visitors a year,
which, for our relatively small building, is a lot of people. The original building was built for 60,000 visitors a year. And then,
when it was expanded with the wing, it was supposed to have... be able to receive about a million visitors a year, and now we have far beyond that.
The museum is in a rather wonderful location in Amsterdam. I am showing you an aerial view of the so-called "Museum Square". And at the top, residing at the top of the square,
as it were, is the Rijksmuseum, the big national museum, mostly of Dutch art, but also has an Asian collection and a few other things.
And then, at the bottom, in the bottom you see our museum, quite prominently, because you see that elliptical shape in the square, which is the Kurokawa Wing
that I was just talking about. And right to the left of it, the Van Gogh Museum, and then right to the left of that, you see a reddish building with white-striped facade
that’s the Stedelijk Museum and that’s the Dutch... it's the Municipal Museum of the city of Amsterdam, but it is really the museum of Modern art, Modern and Contemporary art
in the Netherlands. And then, at the very bottom left corner, just above the name of the photographer and his website, you see another very prominent building,
facing the Rijksmuseum, and that’s the Concertgebouw. The famous, famous concert hall. It's often being argued that it is, together with the Musikverein in Vienna, one of the best concert halls
in the world and it's certainly the best-visited concert hall in the world, with about 900,000 visitors every year. So, we are in a very prominent and tightly-packed
cultural area and really within, you know, two-minute walking distance you can experience art from the middle ages to the present day
and you can throw some music in, you know, for extra amusement. The story of the collection is very quickly told.
It's, as you know... Vincent van Gogh had a rather short life, he didn’t have any children. He killed himself in 1890 at the age of 37 and I am showing you one of only two photographs that exist of him.
On the left hand side, when he is still a young man. So when he dies in 1890, he doesn’t have any children. He doesn’t have a wife.
So, he leaves the entire collection to his brother, Theo, who had been an art dealer in Paris and Theo only died a year after van Gogh in '91.
So, he then, in turn... and we all know the story that Vincent van Gogh really, it always is being said he did never sold any works of art of his, which is not entirely true, he did sell a few works.
He traded a few works with other artists, but basically, the entire collection, everything that he had made, went to Theo. Theo then left it to his widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger,
whom you see in that rather faded picture at the head of the table, with her then, later, second husband and her son, which she had with Theo, Vincent Willem van Gogh. And you see him, then, in the bottom,
as a somewhat older man and it is Vincent Willem van Gogh, who in the 1960s, decided that rather than bequeathing the collection to his three children,
and thereby being fairly certain that the collection would then be dispersed, he then decided to sell it to the Dutch nation. And so, that deal was struck in 1964,
with a stipulation that the Dutch state would set up a museum where the collection would be housed, and that opened, then, in 1973.
But it is really Johanna van Gogh-Bonger who really managed the collection, because she had everything at home, as it were, when her husband died.
And it is she, who really starts managing the collection, who starts lending from the collection. She was instrumental in promoting Vincent van Gogh’s name, together with a few friends and other artists,
and then she started selling from the collection. And so, every van Gogh you see elsewhere in the world, including in this building, once was in her hands, as it were, and then left the family.
But a very, very large core of the collection remained and that is now the core of our collection and I am just showing you very quickly, you know, a smattering, if you like, of highlights and masterpieces from the collection.
The collection still encompasses the whole range of his oeuvre, from the very first sketches he made. Van Gogh’s career only lasted for ten years,
and of those, he painted only for seven years and of the about eight hundred fifty paintings he made, we have two hundred in our collection.
With, as you can see, some of the great highlights. The most popular... I could let you guess, but it might take us too long, which one the most popular painting in the collection is... and no, it’s not the sunflowers,
and it’s not the self portrait, but it’s the turquoise painting in the middle on the right. The Almond Blossoms. And there is a very particular story attached to it.
It was painted by van Gogh for the son of Theo, when he was born, and was meant to hang in the son’s... in Vincent Willem’s bedroom and so Vincent Willem, of course, became the founder of the museum,
so this is something that the family still is very much attached to. But, we also have a very large group of drawings. Vincent van Gogh was a tremendous draftsman.
Some of you, I don’t know, may have had the opportunity to see the big van Gogh drawings exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum a few years ago in New York,
which was truly spectacular and really showed how talented a draftsman van Gogh was. So, we have about 500 of his drawings in the collection
and then, what is one of the treasures, really, of the collection, which is very rarely seen, is the group of van Gogh’s letters.
We have in our collection almost the entire correspondence, a lot of it were letters written to his brother Theo, but van Gogh also corresponded with other artists, with Gauguin,
with Emile Bernard, and others. And we have the overwhelming majority of the correspondence in the collection. Unfortunately, van Gogh didn’t keep letters himself,
so all the letters written to him are pretty much lost. But they are spectacular documents. They have really become Dutch literature.
They are very, very well-known, have been published in many languages, and as it happens, we will be publishing a new scholarly edition in the autumn of next year
of the entire correspondence. Also, fully illustrated, because van Gogh, in those letters... what makes them so valuable, it's not so much that he talks about that he got up this morning at 7 p.m.,
went for walk, and then bought three eggs and so forth, but he really talks about art, becoming an artist, what it meant to him, what he had read... he was unbelievably well-read.
And, of course, he constantly reports to his brother what he is working on, and that’s also why he sent so many of his sketches in the letters to his brother, to illustrate what he is doing.
But, the Van Gogh Museum doesn’t only collect works by the artist himself. First of all, we have, also, the collections that van Gogh himself owned. Vincent van Gogh had
a very large collection of newspaper illustrations, and together with his brother, he started when he lived in Paris, he started collecting Japanese woodcuts.
And so I am showing you here, two of these woodcuts. And then, you can see that he was deeply fascinated by Japanese art and, in fact, when he moved to Provence,
he also thought he was moving to a place that was similar to Japan. That was his view of Japan, he had obviously never been. But you can also see that, in some cases,
he actually even, you know, took Hiroshige's art, in this case, and copied it in a painted version and embellished it, with a border with fake Japanese characters.
So, that’s an essential part of our collection, however, I should add that we don’t add to this part, because that's, you know, that is the collection how van Gogh had collected it,
so it would only, I think, I guess somewhat disturb it, if we then added to that aspect of it. But we do have works by other artists in the collection.
Van Gogh traded works with artists he was friends with, so at the bottom I am showing you the famous portrait of van Gogh painted by Gauguin,
and it is van Gogh painting the sunflower, so how much more iconic can you get? And then, I am showing three other works, from clockwise, from the top left, a work by Monet, which was acquired a few years ago,
likewise the Camille Pissarro, on the top right, and the Avenue at Rocquencourt, and then, a view of Amsterdam by Monet that we bought about five years ago.
And we very consciously are trying to build and extend the collection that shows, sort of, the broader context around van Gogh, because it's too easy to perceive him as, sort of the genius that just fell out of the sky,
who had taught himself, and had otherwise not been touch with the world, and, you know, quite the opposite is true. And we feel that we really do want to show also the broader context and show, you know,
what artistic environment the artist worked in, and what he had seen and encountered.
So, that is the museum aspect of the museums, fame, and money, but we cannot quite leave the money aspect out, and of course van Gogh is everywhere.
On the top right, just two recent examples of major van Gogh exhibitions. The top right an exhibition that’s still on right now, I think it's closing today at the Albertina,
a big show on Vincent van Gogh with one of our self portraits on the poster. The show, two weeks ago, had already had 500,000 visitors. And then, to the left of it, a poster of a show that we sent to Seoul, in Korea
and there, it attracted even more people. And the thirst for his art, and the request that we get, it's incessant.
But then of course, also, you know, van Gogh is appropriated for, you know, whichever kind of advertising and joking and funny things you can imagine
from eyedrops to absinthe, advertisement. And then, of course, my favorite, at bottom left, even Conan O’Brien showing himself as van Gogh.
And, at the other end of the spectrum, also, of course, we all need to live, we all have museum shops, and of course, you know, many products are being generated...
You know, I almost want to say, on the back of poor Vincent. And the doll, up on the left, "The ear comes off," it says on the label.
Down on the bottom right is the van Gogh action figure, and then at the bottom, also, van Gogh vodka, but please don’t ask me what that is about.
The one interesting aspect of that is that we, of course, do not own the name. Anyone can use the name of Vincent van Gogh. That’s not a protected name.
We could protect it, and it a very interesting intellectual property issue. There is a Dutch bank that, until quite recently, had developed a brand name that was called ABN-Amro
Private.... it was called Van Gogh Private Banking and it was by the ABN Amro Bank, and they rolled it out all over Asia. So, all over Asia you had van Gogh imagery attached to that bank
and private banking, and when we then sent a show to... wanted to send a show to China, we were trying to raise funds and everyone said, Yeah, but you have sponsor, it’s the bank!
And we said, Well...no actually, they are just using the name. And what they had done, they had registered the name for the financial sector in Asia.
So, they were then protected, but we would have to go around and protect the name everywhere in the world, for all types of products you can imagine and you would have to do that separately in every country,
for cars, for vodka, for banking, for... you know, you can immediately understand that we couldn’t possibly do that.
So, you know, anyone can do anything with the name, and we just have to live with the consequences. But, so, that gives you a brief notion of, you know these, sort of, I guess, the tensions we also live with,
the sort of constant challenges being the museum, but also dealing with these, sort of, extraneous factors.
And I think I would leave it at that and allow Max to ask a few questions. Thank you.
Well....it’s a great opening to a question I wanted to start with, and that’s to do with your migration from one of the stuffiest
places in the world, the National Gallery in London, to what is a vibrant, lively square in Amsterdam, filled with activity and young visitors
and young enthusiasts, not to suggest the National Gallery isn’t, but the working style, when you were there, was quite different from what you are now operating with,
and I was wondering if you could just share some of what it's been like, to make the transition from a curator to a director, in that regard?
Yeah....It’s a huge, it’s a gigantic step. At the National Gallery, of course, you have a very discrete area that you have responsible as a curator and we were, pretty much, quite independent, could do our own projects, exhibitions, write.
And you have very spoiled that the National Gallery, in that sense that it’s so much at the center of the arts, that, you know, all the colleagues from around the world come to visit.
It’s a very prominent collection. Everyone wants to see it, and everyone wants to work with you. So, in that sense it's not so different being at the Van Gogh Museum. And I think both institutions very much have their hearts in the right place,
and very much still, you know, make it clear that the collection is at the center of everything they do. And the integrity of the imagery, that's something that I really learnt at the National Gallery,
that the integrity of the image is also very important. And so, when I arrived at the Van Gogh Museum, there were some wild things that were being done with van Gogh imagery.
I remember, we had a folder and our colors are obviously blue and yellow, you know, the most dominant colors in his work, and so we had dual-tone illustrations of some of our paintings in blue and yellow.
So, rather than being black and white, they were, you know, blue and yellow, and I thought, "Well, we are the guardian of the collection, surely we should be the ones who also the guardians of every image that, you know,
we publish on the illustrations... on the building... on the collection?" So, you know, we, kind of, turned that back.
But, other than that, it has been a huge challenge because, of course, all of a sudden, if you make the step from curator to director, you are, all of a sudden, confronted with absolutely every issue
that is at play in a museum. And that goes far beyond the collection. It, of course, also has to do with money, it has to do with the facilities, it has to do with, in our case, crowd control.
Many, many, many issues. The budget, these days, not an unimportant issue. So, there are many, many issues, and in the beginning
it can be rather overwhelming, I have to say. But we have, and I am very, very lucky in that sense, that the Van Gogh Museum has a very, very dedicated staff.
People are unbelievably passionate, also inside the museum. We are not too jaded, yet. Also, inside the museum, about the collection, about our activities,
and, I mean, I almost want to say, it’s a privilege to be able to direct the Van Gogh Museum, because it is, based on what I just told you, a very, very prominent institution,
and you get spoiled. Many people want to work with us. We can do big, ambitious projects. Until now, because of the visitor numbers, our income is, by European standards,
quite high, which gives us some financial room to do ambitious projects, both in terms of research, but also exhibitions. So, in that sense it's... I am not confronted with an institution that needed to be turned around,
or needed to be pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy, or anything like that. So, in that sense, also, I have inherited a very luxurious position.
So, that must mean you have all the time in the world to write and publish, then... just like the... just like the old days.
Well, that would be nice. Unfortunately, that is not... that is not the case. There are so many, well, really... things that need addressing, meetings, and different aspects.
And also, not just inside the museum, but the Netherlands, obviously, is fairly small country and the Van Gogh Museum is one the prominent cultural institutions.
So, you also get roped into all sorts of broader cultural debates, funding discussions,
and other collaborative projects, that, unfortunately, leave very little time. But, I should say, I say now, "unfortunately," because I have let myself be tempted to say that, I didn’t want to say it.
Because, actually, I made that decision very, very consciously to become a director, and I knew that I would not be able to do much research or write. But I was up for the challenge, I wanted this challenge,
and wanted to do this kind of work. So, it was a very conscious decision and, I have to say, I just know too many of our colleagues who, every time you talk to them,
and they say, "Oh god, it's terrible, and I wish I could write!" And I was wondering, well, why did you became a director?
I mean, nowadays, you, kind of, do know that's what is part of the game.
What does it mean for you, to go from training and, really, the birthright of German heritage to the Netherlands? Because they are such different places.
Yeah... Well, I mean, I have gone to the Netherlands via a rather circuitous route. I have also studied and worked in the UK. I have worked in the United States. I have studied in Canada.
So, for me, I've never really quite felt any kind of strong, sort of, national adherance, in any way. The truth of the matter is, though, that the heritage sector,
I should call it, for shorthand, is still surprisingly nationalistic. And the further south in Europe you go, the more nationalistic it becomes.
It's in, I would say, in Spain, in Italy, still unthinkable that a foreign national would head one of the major national museums.
The Dutch are fairly easy about that, and there have been foreigners directing other Dutch institutions, and, in fact, my predecessor is British.
So, for the Van Gogh Museum it wasn’t a big leap. The one thing that, in Holland, of course, because of the past,
and because of the fact that Germany occupied the Netherlands, would have made it difficult in, you know, let's say twenty years ago for a German to assume
a position like that, in the Netherlands. But nowadays, I don’t really think it is an issue. When they recently advertised for the job of the directorship of the Rijksmuseum,
they were few voices that said, well, you know, really the director of the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum, ought to be a Dutch person.
But, I think, had the board decided that they wanted a particular foreigner, it would not have been a problem.
And likewise in Britain, in Scandinavia, it's not a problem, and in Germany, it wouldn’t really be a problem. There, it’s more the language barrier.
You could not operate in a German museum without being able to speak German, because the staff’s English would just not be sufficient.
Whereas, in the Netherlands, at least for the first year or so, you can, you know, make it without speaking Dutch, and then you have to learn it very quickly.
So, how is that gone for you, you had it from scholarly days, early on?
Exactly, I had a huge head start. So, when I had lived in Holland before, I had learnt it then, and then during my seven years at the National Gallery in London,
working on Dutch art and with colleagues in the Netherlands, I always, you know, maintained the language.
And then when I applied for the job, it is very funny... during the interview, I asked that the interview would be conducted in English, because I thought,
Well, the Dutch is a little rusty, and if there is a misunderstanding, I don’t want it to be just because my Dutch isn’t good enough! But you could sense, in the room, because one of the members on the panel
knew that I spoke Dutch, and so you could sense that they were all just itching to find out. So, at the very end of the interview, the chairman then said,
well, would I mind terribly if, you know, they could ask the last two questions in Dutch? And so we did, and after that it was Dutch all the way.
Speaking of authority, I am curious about the news bit this month, or last month, which came out about two portraits from 1886, that were verified as authentic works by van Gogh.
Tell us a little bit about how such authentication takes place today, and what role your museum has in that adjudication.
Yes, well, that’s one of the aspects that I certainly wasn’t really prepared for, and what that meant. Indeed, we have these two small portraits in the collection,
and they had, for a very long time, been neglected, and not really looked at, and had been indeed de-attributed. And then our researchers looked at them again.
We have a very large project, research project going on right now, which will hopefully be completed by 2012, about van Goghs Studio practice.
And so, we are looking at the collection in great detail, and analyzing the works and how they were made. And so, these works, in the course of the research, also came up.
And looking at them closely, and that is to say, our curators and also our restorers, also consulting with outside people,
they came to the conclusion that these works really must be, if possibly slightly atypical, but that they are most likely by van Gogh.
But the question raises a much bigger issue, and that is the whole issue of authentication. The Van Gogh Museum receives about three hundred letters a year,
with people sending photographs or sketches or whatever, of works and asking us whether they are by van Gogh,
and in ninety-five percent of the cases, any staff member in our museum, and most of you, would immediately know that the work isn’t by van Gogh.
However, there are, of course, you know, some cases where it is not as clear cut, and then there are some cases, also, of people who are absolutely convinced
that the work is by van Gogh and that wouldn’t be so bad, because you could say, well, we just express an opinion, and if you are of a different opinion, you know, you're welcome to it.
The only trouble is that our opinion has very, very severe financial implications. And, of course, you know, there is still that dream and, as long as the Antiques Roadshow exists...
And, you know, there will always be the dream, "I bought something in a garage sale yesterday and, you know, tomorrow it's going to be worth, you know, fifteen million dollars!"
And, we constantly have to help people out of that dream, and that is a very unpleasant situation, and we have been sued on many occasions, already.
People take it to the newspapers, and it is very difficult, because it's often that you make these decisions on stylistic grounds, and this is not hard and fast science.
But, for example, the auction houses will not accept works into the auctions anymore, unless they come with a letter authenticating the work, from the van Gogh Museum.
So, it puts us into a very, very awkward and often rather unpleasant situation. And I wish we could do what the Jackson Pollock Foundation did,
because they decided, they published the oeuvre catalog and then they said, "In for as far as we are concerned, the case is closed."
So, they do not pronounce on works by, or allegedly by, Pollock anymore, whereas the Andy Warhol Foundation does.
And so, we have been talking to all of them to find out, you know, how it's best done. And ultimately, it just remains a headache.
Well, I think the Warhol Museum is such a fascinating case about how another institution takes the fame of another artist, who was obsessed with his own fame, and goes in a very different direction from your own.
Which raises the question about authentication in the other direction, and that’s forgeries of intentional, intentional forgeries that have entered the market.
And van Meegeren was the great forger, whose works hoodwinked so many museums around the world, earlier in the last century. How big of a problem is that today?
I don’t think it's a... for us, it hasn’t really been the huge thing... it has been a problem, in... There has also been a very, very famous case, earlier in the 20th century, in Germany,
of a large number of works by van Gogh being faked and being sold to very prominent collectors. For us, it's not really a big issue with intentional fakes.
It's more the issue, and what has not really hit us yet, but I am sure it will, soon, are all these reproductions that are being painted on the street, you know, in China.
And so, you know, these will, also, eventually, come our way for authentication, I am sure. And I am sure, you know, we will be able to see quite quickly that they were done with modern materials and, you know, in a very different way.
But really, you know, these sort of deliberate forgeries are not a really big issue. And if we know of many of them...
And that’s also the nice, the good thing... and that’s also why we continue with the whole authentication business, because, of course, it also washes out a lot of material.
So, our archive is unbelievably rich in objects that are either copies or later copies, or indeed forgeries. I mean, what they are...
In the past, many drawing and letters have been forged. Very often, then with colored sketches. So, you know, you can always assume when you see a letter, that fake letters always have sketches in them.
It's never just the writing, you know, then it needs to have a drawing. And there are certain trademarks that you can detect, that make it quite quickly clear that they are forgeries, but,
we have this very rich archive, so that is also, you know, an advantage of doing this whole thing.
Some of us have noticed a little bit of turbulence in the financial markets in a last several weeks...
Oh... really? [Laughter]
Yeah... I'm wondering how that's starting to be felt in the Netherlands and at your museum.
It's keenly felt in Europe, of course, all over the place, as it is here. And, of course, it's now has the sort of rippling effect that it now hits, sort of, you know, consumer behavior.
And, of course, we will experience that as well, and we will suffer from it. And in our case, the van Gogh Museum, which is something I didn’t mention earlier,
finds itself in a very, very peculiar situation... in terms of European museums, I should say. As you know, many, if not most, European museums are state funded.
And often, the funding levels, relative to your overall budget, is quite high. In our case, it's exceptionally low.
So, we only receive about twenty-five percent of our annual budget in government subsidy, of which a large part is just rental for the buildings.
You're not looking for sympathy, right?
No.. no... no... I am just trying to explain, what that means is....
Some of the people here know that we get one half of one percent of our budget from government, so....
I know... I know!
But we feel your pain!
But what that means is, we are therefore very hugely dependent on ticket income, because, you know, the whole fundraising system in Europe, and the readiness to give
is much different from the United States, as I am sure many of you know. And so I depend very much on ticket income at the door.
So, any fluctuation in visitor numbers, we feel very, very quickly. And this year, we have about a five percent drop, which, to some degree, has already been precipitated
by the very weak dollar at the beginning of the year. So, we feel that very quickly, too, because then, you know, that means fewer tourists from America.
And now, for next year, we have projected a decline in visitor numbers, and therefore we need to adjust our budgets accordingly, and, of course, fundraising for us is becoming more difficult.
So, essentially, in that sense, it’s the same. State funded museums, for the time being, or, the ones who receive fifty, sixty, seventy percent of their income in state funding.
They will be a little safer for a while. They will only start to feel it once the governments have reduced tax revenue and will then start cutting their own budgets.
And then, of course, we all know that the arts budgets go first. So, they will have a sort of delayed effect, but we are feeling it very immediately.
So, take us back to an earlier, less complicated, time, which is when you made the decision to pursue museum work. When did that start for you?
It started for me, well.. early on when I, in fact, sort of in America, I sort of got the idea. I knew I was going to go into art history, but didn’t quite know what one could really do with it.
And then I looked around a bit. I met a few people, among whom, also you, and that precipitated the thought that museum would be interesting and for me the interesting,
always the most compelling aspect of museum work was that you could combine different aspects of the discipline. On the one hand, if you were lucky,
and you ended up in a, you know, good museum, you would be able to do some research, you would be able to do exhibitions, and so you would be able to talk to an academic audience,
but, at the same time, you would also be working for a much larger general audience, the general public. And I always found that very, very attractive.
And then, last, but certainly not least, to be able to work with a physical collection. When you are in the university, or you stay in academia,
it's, you know, a lot is being done just from illustrations, from slides or from Powerpoints, nowadays. But just the, sort of, physicality of the collection,
just that they are actually objects, which is also something that in art history studies, I think, it's often criminally neglected.
That I always found very interesting, and so, while I was studying, I interned in various places, but I also did work in the trade for a bit,
and for an auction house, and looked at a few other areas, but ultimately found the museum the most interesting.
There might be a few parents and grandparents in the room whose children and grandchildren are studying art history in college, and wondering why?
Especially these days! So, what advice would you give those students, if you had to counsel them about what they could do with a degree like that?
Well... I mean, jobs, of course, are few and far between, and in my family it didn’t go down very well when I revealed that I was going to do art history.
And my father, I will never forget, at some point, also very gravely... he is an engineer, at some point, very gravely, said to me,
"Well, you must realize, from now on, there's nothing I will be able to do for you."
So, I knew I was, kind of, on my own, and, I mean, it is tricky. It depends, really, how serious you are, about really working in the business, as it were.
Because, of course, you can use this as a, you know, art history as a, sort of, more general liberal arts degree, and, you know, you can, sort of, still do all sorts of things with it.
But, if you really do want to stay in art history, and if you do want to end up in a museum? Well, I mean it’s the advice I received early on, that is still valid,
and I would still pass on. Which is, try to get work experience, you know, do internships, get out there. But also, use those, not only in order to a get a foot in the door,
but also to realize what you really want to do. And whether, you know, the museum is the right thing. And also try, you know, to work in other places,
And then the other thing, and that’s the painful bit, is, you know, try to retain a degree of flexibility. I had many fellow students in Berlin, and Berlin is awash with art historians,
I can tell you, many of whom are driving taxis! And some of my fellow students always said to me, "Oh yeah... but Berlin is such a cool city and so great,
it's so great to live here. I will just never move away!" And, you know, then, of course, the chances are minimal that you ever be able to find a job in this field.
So, and for me, and that has always been my, the guiding principal that I set... well, I will just, you know, try, at least, to remain flexible
and grab any opportunity, almost wherever it might be. And then, as you, sort of, you know, grow up, you become a bit more spoiled. So, now it might not be any opportunity, anymore.
So, one of the things that’s distinctive about your career is that you have so much awareness of the American scene and the European scene, which very few people do.
So, compare them for us, a little bit, the museums and how the outlook of museums in the States versus the European Union might be contrasted.
Yeah... well, obviously, I have thought a lot about that, and over the course of the, you know, past years and decades, and I'm not sure I have come up with sort of unbelievably great wisdoms.
But, one of the key differences is, of course, that, I would argue that European museums are much more part of the, sort of, social fabric.
There is, sort of, an understanding in most European societies that cultural heritage is important, that you have to have it, and that, also, the whole community
supports it and that is by paying taxes, obviously. But there is not really much of a discussion. There is a discussion about the level of, at which,
and, of course, that’s continually being reduced, as governments have less money. But the general consensus that, as a community,
as a society, you value, and you maintain your cultural heritage, and that you also, as a society, you know, you support it. I think it is more prominent than it is here.
I was very struck by this, I read an article, just two days ago, about the financial perils of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
And when I worked there, they had just come out of a serious, serious budget cut by Governor Engler, back then. And which threatened the museum, to a degree, that it almost closed down completely.
And in the article, it said that there were, in the Michigan legislature, a very, very, large number of lawmakers who just didn’t believe in public funding for the arts.
And that just... yeah... I mean, I was just gobsmacked. That is a little sentence you would not read very easily in the European newspaper.
So, that’s one of the big things. On the other hand, you have in Europe, these very large museums that have been around since the beginning of time,
and they, for a long time, have lived quite comfortably on state funding, and you could argue, that many of them have always, have also been a bit asleep at the wheel.
And a lot of the, sort of, more dynamic initiatives, and, sort of, innovations in the museum field, and here I am also talking about how to, you know,
talk to audiences, museum education, and all of that, I think has been much, much, more dynamic and innovative over here,
where museums also have, I guess, understood, more quickly, that you need to make greater efforts to communicate with your audience.
In Europe, and I remember this, I heard it from people in Germany, who said, well, you know, if people don’t understand,
lets say, what’s depicted in a Rubins painting, if they don’t understand, you know, a mythological scene, well, really they shouldn’t be coming to the museum in the first place.
And that’s, sort of, you know, of course, you know, mind-numbingly arrogant, but that was a, sort of, prevailing attitude.
And it's, you know, "We preserve the art, and we keep it, but only really for people who understand that" And that, I think, also is a fundamental difference.
And then again, last, but certainly not least, is because of the differences in funding structures is, you know, of course, the issues around how you can be commercially active as a museum,
and, of course, you know, how you fundraise and all of that. Well, of course, for a long time American museums have been miles ahead,
but, you know with, increasing shortages in public funding in Europe, you know, the Europeans are catching up fast.
Well, and up until pretty recently, the Gulf States were not a factor, so, I guess, for full disclosure, are you doing anything today with any of the Gulf States?
We are not. We have been approached, but then again, I receive requests practically daily, from many regions in the world.
We have also been approached by the Gulf States, but given that there is not really a proper museum there yet, we are not entertaining sending an exhibition there, quite yet.
And, with this whole phenomenon of the Gulf States. I just want to sit back and wait a bit to see how all of that shakes out, because they are unbelievably ambitious projects,
and they, you know, all look great and sound good on paper, at least. But, I am always slightly bewildered and wondering who they are really meant for.
Considering that in the Gulf States, in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and so forth, the local audiences are only about, or the local population is only about five percent of the total population.
And it seems that much of this is being planned, constructed, and intended for an evidently gigantic tourist audience, and, of course, some museums like the Guggenheim museum,
like the Louvre, have entered into these long term deals with Abu Dhabi, to share collections. But I was, sort of, stunned by the comments that were made to justify it.
When the French really stood up and said, "Well... you know, we are doing this for, you know, cultural understanding, and exchange between, you know, the east and the west and cultures."
And, I will never forget sitting at a conference and another colleague of mine leaned over, and said, "Well, if they are so serious about it, why do they not open then, and you know, a Louvre in Damascus, or in Cairo."
Because that’s really where the audience, that if you are so serious about that intercultural exchange, that’s where the audience is. It's not in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
So, for me, it's all, at the moment, still a little bit vague, and built on sand. And we are, therefore, much more concentrating right now on Asia, and we have had longstanding relationships already with Asia,
and they are many more countries that, you know, are interested and well, you know, they are enormously relevant. So, I am sure that’s our future.
Let's leave a couple of minutes for questions, if anyone has any. I wanted to ask you about one last question, on my end, about Nazi era loot, and an issue that continues to face museums around the world.
How has that affected your institution?
That’s a very quick answer. It hasn’t. Basically, because, what I told you earlier, that we know, you know, the largest chunk of the collection comes from, straight from the family.
So, it has always been with the family, before it became part of the museum. And everything else? Since the museum only started operating in 1973, we are very clear on the provenance of things
that have been acquired since, and so it's really not an issue for us.
So, if you have any questions, we have got two mics up here so everyone could hear you, if you wouldn’t mind stepping forward.
That’s many questions rolled into one. It's... yes, there is a wish list, I am ... well, can I disclose it? I mean there are some major works still in private hands,
that we would like to be able to lay our hands on, but they are of a scale and, you know, of a price, no matter what the financial markets do, and no matter what the art market does,
because quite frankly, you know, whether then a painting costs 60 million dollars or 80 million dollars at some point it become sort of you know fantasy amounts that we as a museum in Europe
could not easily raise. So, unless I find someone who is so unbelievably generous that you know who would give us a work like that but
so, we have threfore not actually excepting to acquire one of those major works that are still in private hands and one could think for example of the portrait of Dr. Gachet,
which not only for artistic reasons is important but also because Gachet played an important role in the last months of van Gogh’s life. So, there is also the biographical aspect
why the picture would be important, but you know certainly it was one of the most expensive paintings ever sold when it was sold and so I don’t think we could ever touch it.
But you raised another issue and that is how important are the works around the world and I have to say very and what’s slightly regrettable is that when the collection was in the hands of Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, she managed it very well,
but she also sold according to her own taste and that meant that certain aspects of van Gogh’s however are unfortunately not represented in our collection.
There are few experimental works that van Gogh did and you could go and find say Starry Night is one of those that is really a bit rather experimental work,
very modern work that obviously was sold from the collection, but she also for example sold all the rather great and grand portraits van Gogh painted during his years in art
of the postman Roulin and Roulin’s wife and madame Ginoux and various other people and not one of them has remained in our collections.
So, that is one regret that we have and so we have one picture on very long term long to fill that gap and yes I would like to acquire in that area
but hardly any anymore even in private hands and so yes there are aspects of the artist's work out there in the world that you know are very important generally
and we unfortunately we can't show.
Well we have been asking ourselves that a lot whether we would present it differently. There is generally you could argue a bit of, I don’t know whether its van Gogh fatigue in Holland, but the thing is the Dutch have a very sort of conflicted
relationship with any notion of fame of people who you know stand out. Holland is a country that is unbelievably egalitarian and
also because of it's you know very very strong protestant background you are not really meant to put your head above the parapet and you are a part, it’s a consciences culture
and so they have a very hard time dealing with you know sort of exceptional figures with exceptional fame and that makes van Gogh immediately suspicious.
So, therefore, the Dutch have a sort of slightly odd love-hate relationship with the fact that you know they have van Gogh and that he is this sort of famous international
phenomenon and they would not as fervently want to claim van Gogh as being Dutch as the French try to claim van Gogh as being French.
So, in that sense it's... we the Dutch also when I speak to Dutch people and we are talking about van Gogh, it’s a sort of rather cool response to it.
So, I am not sure how much we could really attract our local audiences on you know
with van Gogh and with different displays. What we do do and I would argue that our exhibition’s program is very much geared to what's more a national and local audience
because with our exhibition’s program much with our collecting nowadays, we do try to present the broader 19th century context that the artists worked,
but even aspects of the context that he could not have known really. So, we recently had an exhibition for example around Barcelona, the city and it's art around 1900.
Just because we feel you know we want to show the broader European context of that was produced at that period and those are exhibitions that also you know very much do appear to
Dutch audiences because they of course bring aspects also to the country and to their attention that are otherwise also not represented in Dutch museums elsewhere.
Axel lets end with an attempt at consensus which is the pronunciation of these artists name, you know people everywhere has it, they have a different take on it,
the French have their own and what leads one to say his name the way you do and how should our audience walk out of this room feeling more confident about our collective ability to pronounce his name.
Well.. I mean there are so many and every country has its own, so it is a bit tricky if all of a sudden you all walk out and pronounce it differently because people here
will just simple not understand what you mean, but it's interesting. The American say "van Go". The English say "van Goff." The French say "van Gug." The German say "van Gough."
The Japanese say "Goho" and Vincent himself was very much aware of that and he writes in a letter actually that that’s because he had lived in France and in England
that is because his name was so difficulty that is why he signed his paintings Vincent, but the truth is if the Dutch pronounce his name "van Gogh."
Oh... try that with me. "Van Gogh"
"Van Gogh" that’s how its pronounced in Dutch.
I want to thank you very very much for joining us today and thanks to all of you for coming out in this cold day. Thanks a lot!
Thank you, thanks for having me...!
Thank you!
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