RESEARCH INTO THE COLLECTION

At the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, researching and analyzing our collection is central to our mission. Our aim is to turn a small circle of connoisseurs into a large and informed group through publications and a specialist library, documenting the collection in a digital database and organizing lectures and symposia. We are also exploring ways of sharing this knowledge using new and mobile media. Scientific research and experimentation also play a vital role in conserving our collection.

PARTNERS

The Stedelijk Museum works closely with research partners such as the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), the Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History (OSK) and the University of Amsterdam, especially the Museum Conservation M.A. program. Leading researchers and scholars from the Netherlands and around the world share their expertise with researchers at the Stedelijk Museum.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND PRESERVATION

Within the Science4Arts program, NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research has awarded funding to the research project “Photographs & Preservation. How to save photographic artworks for the future?” The research is dedicated to understand and develop conservation strategies for contemporary photographic artworks. The works examined will mainly be post-1960s photographic works of art to which different materials such as paint, adhesive, paper, metal are deliberately applied by the artists onto the surface. The selected works of art will be studied from three different disciplines: art history, organic chemistry, and conservation and museum practices. The project started on the 1st of June 2012 and will run until June 2016, with an extension to 2017 for the concluding conference. 

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GLOBAL COLLABORATIONS

Global Collaborations was a 3-year project of the Stedelijk Museum that took place between 2013 and 2015, with the aim to generate a well-informed view on the developments in contemporary art from a global perspective. The focus herein was on so called upcoming regions in Europe, the Middle East and East and Southeast Asia.

Next to extensive research, the project was based on collaborative partnerships with experimental and multifaceted art initiatives and art institutions around the globe. It resulted amongst others in exhibitions, collection presentations, publications, symposia, performances and an artist-in-residency. During these three years Global Collaborations was a platform for encounters and debates amongst artists, academics, curators and museum professionals from all over the world. The insights and ideas that were developed will get a place in the history of the Stedelijk Museum.

All projects and presentations that took place in the last three years have been reviewed from different perspectives and documented on the Globalonline platform. An archive of all the reports van be found here.

You can find an overview of all reports, on the Global Collaborations blog

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