Over de BKR

Playing universal, working local: on the Eindhoven artists’ production in relationship to international contemporary art, and their inclusion/omission in the Van Abbe Museum

The BKR-Play Van Abbe project is focused on Eindhoven’s twentieth-century art scene, as the city had intense artistic activity as well as a great modern art space to visualise this, namely the Van Abbe Museum. Involved within this game were the artists, the Van Abbe Museum and the BKR’s policies. This art game was played in a Modernist context; a Universalist pretension that, in reality, was impeded by a restricted scope. This tension between the local and universal policies has been experienced by the different players, due to the local artists’ need to be represented, the BKR’s attention to national art production, and the Van Abbe Museum’s will to manage an art collection with international aspirations and orientation.

The game started in the 1930′s, when both the government created the first structural programme to support Dutch contemporary art and the donation of a building and art collection by Henri van Abbe to the city of Eindhoven. Those were the years of the return to Figuration with an international trend of Neorealism, Magic Realism and Surrealism. The artists Carel Willink, Pyke Koch, Raoul Hynckes, Dick Ket and Wim Schuhmacher brought this trend home, being named the “Dutch magic-realists”. Only one painting by Willink was acquired by the government in 1935, De Spoorbrug, while the government actively supported figures such as Jan Sluijters and Leo Gestel. Indeed, the government programme looked for quality in the acquisitions, and the Van Abbe Museum perpetuated the collecting trend of the patron. According to René Pingen, “Though the Van Abbe Museum was a municipal museum, there was no preference for artists from Eindhoven or the province of North Brabant.”¹

World War II was dramatic for artists, since art in the Netherlands was used for political means; the Nazification of the people. All artists had to be registered in the Culture Chamber not only to sell their work, but also to acquire material to work with.² Therefore, Dutch art adapted to the taste of the new regime, effectively being censored by the occupying government. The Magic-Realist artists of the former decade were chosen as the appropriate image to indoctrinate and influence the masses. Thanks to this, paintings by Willink, Koch and Hynckes entered the state art collection. The situation at the Van Abbe Museum was much worse however: the institution’s initial energy slowly faded away during the occupation, and even the collection and loans were brought to the cellar to secure the pieces. The museum was closed.³

The goal of Dutch government policies after the war was to spread  culture to “re-civilise” the traumatised population. To achieve this, the stress fell on building a state art collection of representative Dutch artists. The result was far removed from the original plan with incoherent purchasing of both traditional figurative, abstract and expressionist art, partly due to the changing regulations of the Balancing Policy (Contraprestatie, 1949-1956) and the Visual Artists’ Scheme  (Beeldende Kunstenaars Regeling or BKR, 1956-87). Both programs were implemented by the Ministry of Social Affairs. The government simultaneously carried on actively acquiring art through the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences (OKW, later OCW). At a later stage the collections of both ministries were combined and assigned to what is now the ICN. Expressionism was at the time the prominent art movement and the Netherlands, with its European transnational version, shaped the Cobra group. Expressionist art entered the Van Abbe Museum too with Edy de Wilde as director (1946-1963). De Wilde established the foundations of the collection and opened it to the international scene.⁴ His taste for Picasso, Kandinsky or Kokoschka led little room for the local Eindhoven artists, who, in exception, succeeded in displaying their work in the 11 Visual Artists from Brabant (11 beeldende kunstenaars uit Brabant) exhibit in the Van Abbe Museum in 1953 (Kees Bol being the only BKR artist ⁵). For the most part these artists gained exposure through other local institutions.

“There was nothing. Almost nothing. Only the Van Abbe Museum. The rest we built it [sic] ourselves,”⁶ stated Ad Snijders about the post-war period, which is certainly true because the artists not only organised themselves into societies and groups, but also created the alternative exhibition spaces.⁷ As societies were the Academic Society (Academisch Genootschap), de Foundation Visual Art (Stichting Beeldende Kunst) and the Art circle of Kempen (Kunstkring De Kempen), who among other circles worked with the Krabbedans to properly display their work. As groups the “Free Expressives” (“Vrije Expressiven”) appeared in 1956 with Ad Snijders and Johan Lennarts among others. Not successful enough, the group disintegrated and formed “Don’t give a shit on painting” (“Schijt aan Schilderkunst”) ten years later, which flourished with the addition of J. C. J. Vanderheyden. With such a name provocation was guaranteed. 

The 1960′s were provocative indeed, with their anti-art attitude. On one hand, Pop Art developed a highly materialistic way to deny art, serialising the art works to destroy their aura. On the other hand, life was seen as “a piece of music, a musical process” by the international Fluxus movement.⁸ Edy de Wilde actively contributed to the creation of the bridge between the international movements and the local artists, first exhibiting the freshest contemporary art from abroad, but also promoting the local artists in the international sphere. As a result, Pop Art also developed in the Eindhoven circle with the BKR artist Pieter Celie. Fluxus had more effect in the Netherlands, with Willem de Ridder and Stanley Brouwn working in an international context, and the Eindhoven artist Paul Panhuysen revolutionising the local context. The “Zero-group” was formed as a branch of Fluxus, founded by Armando and Henk Peeters.

The museum’s social responsibility was raised by Jean Leering, director of the Van Abbe Museum from 1964 to 1973. His innovative exhibition policy had the aim to raise consciousness and make the art a participative activity. This very same idea advocated the Fluxus artists, making Leering a highly influential and socially committed museum director. Happenings took place within the museum walls and experimental exhibitions were organised; Paul Panhuysen’s (BKR) “Situaties Ambiances Environments” held during the “Museumparty” (Museumfeest, 1967) stands as a good example. Also many Dutch artists saw their work purchased by the museum thanks to a clear will to interact with the local, in combination with the most advanced international creations. The BKR programme adopted the idea of participation in the 1970′s, where the art policies looked to bring modern art to people not familiar with it throughout the country. Art had to be socially relevant and it was consequently acquired to organise educative exhibitions. In this context, the exhibition “For Learning and Enjoyment” (“Tot Lering en Vermaak“) organized by the three BKR artists Johan Lennarts, Lukas Smits and Ad Snijders in the Van Abbe Museum in 1970 appears highly relevant. With the question: “Are museums still relevant?” they dealed in a playful way with all kind of issues on art and its social function.

Rudy Fuchs, the new director of the Van Abbe Museum (1975-1987), stood against this philosophy of social responsibility. He believed in the art for the art’s sake and defended the autonomy of artists and their works; as a result the museum’s education department was dissolved. The museum’s art canon changed with him as well, shifting from the United States (Abstract Expressionism, Pop-Art, Fluxus) to Europe, exhibiting and collecting Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, German art and Arte Povera; these choices were praised by the international art circle and in 1982 Fuchs was appointed the artistic director of the documenta 7 in Kassel. Fuchs brought great attention to the local Eindhoven artists as well, dedicating them several catalogues; important group exhibitions, like the 1982 and 1984 BKR shows “A Choice of the Eindhoven region” (exhibiting the work of 34 and 32 BKR artists respectively)⁹; solo exhibitions and a great amount of monographic books on their work. Out of the 207 BKR-Eindhoven artists¹⁰, ten were chosen for an individual show and nine out of these have work in the museum’s current collection, due to the quality of their work.¹¹ The trend of the Eindhoven artists of the period was painting expressionist to abstract canvases, which reflected the 1980′s Western trend to return to the painted canvas after a few years of experimenting with different media.

The impulse given by the museum to the local artists during the 1970’s and 1980’s was key for their careers, given that the last years of the BKR programme displaced the social motivation to help the artist; on the contrary, the BKR committed towards quality in art. Since 1985 a broad collecting policy was aimed at filling up gaps in the collection with the acquisition of video art, installations, and historic photography collections. It was here where the BKR’s policies advanced those of the Van Abbe Museum. This happened under the management of Jan Debbaut (1988-2003), who collected mostly paintings and exhibited the work of contemporary installation artists such as Tony Cragg and Juan Muñoz.

In the 1990′s three relevant events took place. Firstly, the BKR committed to reduce the state collection. Through the Foundation to Return Art (Stichting Kunstwegen) thousands of works were returned to the artists. Secondly, the BKR was dismantled and from the fusion of three different departments (DVR, NKS, BBKB¹²) the ICN was born in 1996; the new institution had the goal of managing the existing collection, while new acquisitions would be done through the newly founded Mondriaan Foundation and placed directly in the collections of the museums themselves. Thirdly and last, a great group of Eindhoven artists were given visibility in a photography exhibition by Ruud Balk at the Kempenland Museum.¹³ The photographer portrayed many of the BKR artists of Eindhoven in their ateliers and working places, showing both the artists’ personal and professional faces in highly characteristic pictures. In addition to the images, the catalogue accompanying the exhibition provided a short biography of every artist. On the one hand, both the dissolution of the BKR and the exhibition on the Eindhoven’ artists seem to mark the end of an era, an era in which artists struggled to receive the BKR’s support and create a name for themselves in the commercial art market. By the time the artists appeared in Ruud Balk’s exhibition they were already established local artists and therefore the show represented a tribute in life more than an effort to project them commercially. On the other hand, the creation of the ICN introduced a new player to the on-going game. The game goes on…

The summarised progress of these sixty years of art production, regulation and consumption results in several issues. Firstly, the sharing of exhibiting and collecting policies between the BKR and the Van Abbe Museum has to do with the presence of three directors of the Van Abbe Museum – Edy de Wilde, Rudy Fuchs and Jan Debbaut in the BKR-commission (ill. 1). The fact that the Van Abbe Museum was often ahead of the BKR in art trends and policies, says something about the burden of bureaucracy in the BKR opposed to the flexibility of a one-manned modern art museum, in the sense of decision making. Secondly, the Eindhoven artists’ (mis)representation was both exercised by the BKR and the Van Abbe Museum since their interests were mainly oriented towards the international Western art trend. As has been shown though, the art policy-forming of the BKR shifted from supporting the artists to educating the people and finally to build on a quality art collection, which led the artists to move from a prevailing to a precarious position in this scheme. Even more, the great group exhibitions of the BKR artists took place in the Van Abbe Museum as late as 1982, and only the work of very few BKR-Eindhoven artists have been integrated into the Van Abbe Museum’s collection (14 artists out of 207).

On the other hand, not many countries can fancy of having such  time-lasting programs to support the artists as in the Netherlands (1933-1992); for instance Sweeden had a slightly shorter programme (1937-1987) but the United States  ’New Deal for the Arts” only lasted ten years (1933-1943)¹⁴. The Van Abbe Museum contributed a great deal to the artistic life in Eindhoven by opening up its frontiers: “The Van Abbe was a window on the world, through which you could have a look at New York…”¹⁵ but also at a huge range of European art. This fact led the artists from Eindhoven to be connected with the international trends and adapt these into original local forms.

The game evolves now to the BKR-Play Van Abbe project. The misrepresented artists and their history in relation to Eindhoven, the Van Abbe Museum and the BKR are going to be further discussed on this website in order to give visibility to both the tensions but also the material productions manufactured under these tensions: the art works. Artists and works of art are going to be the main characters of this new episode of the game to find new loaners who are willing to display the BKR collection. The works of art are going to be displayed at the Van Abbe Museum, now under the management of Charles Esche (2004), as a section of the exhibition The Politics of Collecting, the Collecting of Politics (September 2010-February 2011).

Alba Campo, September 2010