PRESENTATION: When Things Are Beings

The exhibition “When Things Are Beings” is part of the project series Proposals for Municipal Art Acquisitions, which is organized biannually with financial support from the City of Amsterdam. Makers living and working in the Netherlands are invited to respond to an open call, followed by a jury selection and a group exhibition. Some of the work shown will be acquired for the museum collection.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Stedelijk Museum Archive

The group exhibition “When Things Are Beings” reveals the power of objects and sculptures in a range of visual languages. With 24 projects, designers and artists show in their own way how the material and immaterial realms are connected. Each of the designers and artists who made these 24 projects takes their own path to linking the material and the immaterial worlds. Spanning 13 rooms, the works forge connections between ideas and objects, spirituality and materiality, and link social issues to tangible phenomenon. All of them play with the question of whether “things” can have a soul, using a wide range of media: video, soundscape, textile, assemblage, object design, jewelry, sculptures, photography, printing, painting, and performance.  Some of the projects exhibited here invoke spiritual worlds, while others interweave layered narratives about different generations in various places. For instance, artist Seán Hannan presents an egg containing an Irish curse made especially for the Stedelijk, and media artist and designer Sondi’s work plays with memories of her childhood home in Cameroon. The exhibition moves between the elusive appeal of abstract concepts, and forms of spirituality that can lie hidden in objects and sculptures. Design and art can enchant or captivate us in ways that cannot always be clearly explained or defined. For example, in “FOLD”, a mirror made of layered sandblasted glass, designer Sabine Marcelis explores material properties that initially escape direct observation, by playing with depth and perception. Artist Ana Navas’ sculptures titled “Excuses” consist of shapeshifting household objects, such as a drying rack, that ‘put on a costume’, and grew out of her fascination with the relationship between popular culture and what is known as ‘high’ art.

Participating designers and artists: Ayo, James Beckett, Yinka Buutfeld, Jae Pil Eun, Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Laurids Gallée, Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic, Seán Hannan, Saskia Noor van Imhoff, Iris Kensmil, Sebastian Koudijzer, Marcos Kueh, Aram Lee, Shani Leseman, Sabine Marcelis, Chequita Nahar, Ana Navas, Hatutamelen, Wendy Owusu, Ginevra Petrozzi, Magali Reus, Sondi, Amy Suo Wu & Elaine W. Ho, Wei Yang

Photo: James Beckett, The Sceptical Structures of Max: 08, 2019. Courtesy of the artist and T293 gallery, Rome. Photo: Roberto Apa

Info: Stedelijk Museum, Museumplein 10, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Duration: 26/11/2022-10/4/2023, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-18:00, www.stedelijk.nl/