GREAT MUSEUMS:The Van Abbemuseum Collection II

The Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven is one of the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe, opened in 1936, the museum is one of the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe. The museum has an experimental approach towards art’s role in society. Openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important. 

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Van Abbemuseum Archive

The museum’s collection covers a period of about 100 years and has 2700 works, of which about 1000 are on paper, are 700 paintings, and 1000 are sculptures, installations and video works, including key works and archives amongst others by: Alptekin, Appel, Baer, Beuys, Billing, Braque, Broodthaers, Chagall, Delaunay, Dibbets, Van Doesburg, Dumas, Fontana, Gestel, Gordon, Haacke, Hamilton Finlay, Heiman, Immendorff, Jonas, Jorn, Judd, Karamustafa, Kiefer, Klein, Kusolwong, LeWitt, Mareschal, Mondriaan, Murtazaoglu, Muñoz, Nauman, Perjovschi, Picasso, Qiu, Rosler, Sasnal, Schwitters, Sluijters, De Smet, Solakov, Stella, Toorop, Ugay, Warhol, Weiner and Willink, the Museum is also internationally renowned for having one of the largest collections of works by El Lissitzky. In the Oudbouw (old building) temporary exhibitions are exploring topics of general political and social concern alongside focused presentations of individual artists are held. In the Nieuwbouw (new building), a radical new approach called Plug In has been developed to exhibit the famous Collection. The Nieuwbouw is also the location of Living Archive, a series of documentary exhibitions based on the Museum archive.