New work

No fewer than 99 works of art and design have joined the Stedelijk’s collection presentation, many created by female makers and emerging international artists. In fact, three-quarters of all work in the the visual arts are produced by women. The works on display include many recent acquisitions, which now go on public display for the first time.

Tomorrow Is a Different Day presents our collection of art and design created after 1980. An era that saw dramatic transformations, with a booming free market economy and an increasingly connected world thanks to new technologies like the internet and mobile phones. It was also a time of growing inequality, worsening global pollution, and diminishing natural resources. Artists confront these dilemmas head-on. They address social issues, challenge power dynamics, and embrace recyling and upcycling. They also reflect on the experience of what it is to be rooted in multiple places, and to move between different cultures.

POWER
A room dedicated to power(ers) past and present brings together work by Natasja Kensmil, who depicts the last Russian tsar couple in a dark afterlife, Yang Shaobin, whose distorted portrait of Mao appears to embody the violence of the cultural revolution, Sedrick Chisom, with an ironic depiction of a lord on horseback and Miriam Cahn’s representation of power in the form of a boot stamping on a face. The portrait of Queen Beatrix by Luc Tuymans balances the conventions of official portraiture with a portrayal of a human being, who, like all of us, grapples with tragedy.

IN-BETWEENNESS
The newly acquired work by Lydia Ourahmane, an installation featuring the door of her home in Algiers, to which she could not return, is a symbol of a life left behind. In his woven ‘posters’ Marcos Kueh plays with texts and stereotypes, while questioning the extent of the island of Borneo’s independence in a neocolonial era. As he searches for his place in society and the art world, Benjamin Li views food as the link connecting culture and community. Remy Jungerman also allows for encounters between cultures, with an oeuvre that references Western modern art, winti symbolism and traditions of Suriname’s Maroon communities. From a pop culture lens, Xavier Robles de Medina’s portrait of Aaliyah critiques the complex ways in which, shaped by (post) colonialism, cultures intersect. In her portrait of Anil Ramdas, a Surinamese journalist and writer, Iris Kensmil depicts an influential thinker who explored all of these themes.

THE BLACK GAZE
For many years, Western ideas—often based on stereotypes—defined how Black people were portrayed in art. Today, Black artists take control of how they are represented. This is evident in new work in the collection by artists like Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Kayode Ojo, Tschabalala Self, and Sandra Mujinga, who will transform the museum’s large lower-level gallery in September. For the planned acquisition of Negroes Battling in a Cave, a layered black work rich in meaning, Ellen Gallagher refers to the racist phrase discovered in 2015 beneath the surface of Malevich’s Black Square.

PROTEST
Other examples of social engagement include the recently acquired work by Carrie Mae Weems, which appears to be an abstract painting, but is a photograph of Black Lives Matter protest slogans painted over by the authorities. Julie Mehretu’s large painting, with a sculptural addition by Nairy Baghramian, draws inspiration from abstracted photographic images of the Ukraine war and of the assault on the Capitol (Mehretu’s first work in a Dutch public collection), while the work by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami addresses the alienating online meeting tools that have become prevalent since the pandemic. Mounira Al Solh’s work calls attention to the influence of Western ideals on women in Lebanon, Now You See Me Moria is a critique of Europe’s failing refugee policy. Nan Goldin’s Memory Lost, an indictment of the opioid epidemic fuelled by Big Pharma, is also on display, along with photographs from her Cookie Portfolio, sharing space with work by General Idea and Peter Hujar that addresses the AIDS epidemic’s devastation and its stigmatizing taboo.

UPCYCLING
Contemporary designers also engage with environmental issues, climate change, and the depletion of the Earth’s resources. Instead of using scarce raw materials and polluting techniques, they increasingly turn to natural materials and ecologically-friendly production methods. Recycling and upcycling are central to the work of designers like Ineke Hans, who transforms garbage into stylish furnishings, Joana Schneider who creates products from fishing nets and rope, Tamara Orjola whose Forest Wool rug is composed of processed pine needles—normally a waste product—and the chair by Bär+Knell Design, made of recycled plastic bottles. The blankets created by Belén are woven with a plant-based pigment to conserve water.

GIFTS
Many of the works on display were donated to the Stedelijk collection by private individuals, and include works by Sedrick Chisom, Anthony Cudahy, Marlene Dumas, Rashid Johnson, Natasja Kensmil, Julie Mehretu, Christina Quarles, Tschabalala Self, Yang Shaobin, Luc Tuymans, and Carrie Mae Weems. Various acquisitions were made possible by the VriendenLoterij, Mondriaan Fund, and the Rembrandt Society. A signifcant number of donations entered the collection through the Stedelijk Museum Fonds.