This is an invitation for the Open Call for the biannual Municipal Art Acquisitions at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The exhibition will open in November 2026, and will be dedicated to collaborative artistic practices. This Open Call will be followed by a jury selection process and a group exhibition, from which selected works will be acquired for the museum’s collection.

Collaborative Artistic Practices

Often our current times are described as one of multiple, intersecting crises on geopolitical, social and ecological level, urging artists, designers and makers to reimagine the systems, infrastructures and futures we depend on. This challenges the arts’ focus on the individual and centralizes values that are based on solidarity, participation and reciprocity. This Open Call is directed at artistic practices that are shaped and informed by collaborative working, thinking and doing. What new artistic forms, visual languages, methodologies and vocabularies do these shared practices generate? How are collaborative practices important for the making and thinking about the arts in our current condition? How can we think of the exhibition format and its displays when cross-cultural dialogue, relationship and gathering are not only part of the artistic process but compose the material of the work? This edition of the Municipal Art Acquisitions seeks to host and translate collaborative artistic practices to the exhibition space and show its new, manifold directions. 

Apply here

U kunt de aanmelding hier in het Nederlands invullen.

For whom

Proposals for this Open Call can come from collectives; from artists, designers and makers that continuously, occasionally or temporarily work together; and from any other artists, designers and makers that work in ways that resist singular authorship, proprietary ownership, or individual credit – whether or not they use the term ‘collective’. The proposed new, existing or modified existing work can be open-ended, material, process-based and/or participatory. It can vary in form and attitude: from sculpture to installation, from manifestos to printed matter, and from archival work to workshops. 

At least one of the applicants per proposal should be working and/or living in the Netherlands and the Caribbean part of the Kingdom. Existing works, modification of an existing work and new works to be developed specifically for this exhibition are eligible for submission, although the latter is limited to the overall selection and production budget. The jury committee, consisting of Bik Van der Pol (artist duo consisting of Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol), Ebissé Wakjira (publications coordinator at Framer Framed, editor for De Nederlandse Boekengids, and cofounder of Dipsaus), Lara Khaldi (artistic director De Appel), and Lauren Alexander (co-founder Foundland Collective, co-head Graphic Design BA at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague), together with Stedelijk curators Claire van Els (curator) and Thomas Castro (curator of graphic design), will select the proposals for the exhibition. The works will be exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum from November 2026 onwards and during the exhibition a selection will be acquired for the collection of the Stedelijk Museum.   

Focus 

A large number of collective artistic practices develop, also historically, outside institutional settings – in informal networks, mutual aid, underground cultures, land-based knowledge systems, diasporic survival structures, digital communities, and non-Western systems of knowledge. As museums often have not recognized and/or narrated such (multifaceted) collaborative work as artistic practice, the collection of the Stedelijk does not reflect these developments. As the title of the Municipal Art Acquisitions proposes, a selection of the works will be acquired for the museum’s collection. Some of these practices might want to move away or critique the institutional apparatus, including its categories, dynamics and hierarchies. Others, for example participatory or immaterial practices, might challenge the museum to rethink its collection’s infrastructure and its object-based focus on permanency.  

Practical note

  • Deadline: March 1, 2026, 11:59 PM.  

  • All proposals must be submitted via the online application form.  

  • At least one proposal must be submitted with the application. It is possible to submit multiple proposals.

  • Only fully completed applications will be eligible for review.  

  • Selection days and jury interviews will take place on April 8, 9, and 10, 2026.  

  • Selected participants will receive a fee in accordance with the Fair Practice Code. Because the 2026 regulation is not designed to accommodate multiple collective practices within a group exhibition, it has been agreed with various stakeholders to use the 2025 artist fee regulation as the basis instead. Because the Stedelijk recognizes the importance of acknowledging individual authorship within collaborative practices, this regulation is supplemented with an additional contribution from the Stedelijk. The specified amounts can be found in the F.A.Q. section.

  • Questions can be sent to: gka2026@stedelijk.nl, or check out our F.A.Q.

The exhibition takes place on the ground level of the historical building of the Stedelijk. The exhibition occupies one out of the two ground level circuits, divided into various gallery spaces. The following materials can be provided upon request, subject to the museum’s availability: Riso printer, microphones, platforms, vitrines, museum benches and sofas. The museum’s auditorium/library/meeting rooms/canteen are available for incidental programming. Other exhibition materials and specific presentation requirements, as well as a publication that accompanies the exhibition, are to be discussed.