n The 18-month programme Play Van Abbe at the Van Abbemuseum consists of exhibitions, projects, performances, lectures and discussions, taking the collection of the Van Abbemuseum as a starting point. Play Van Abbe is subdivided into
four parts, each with its own theme.
Part 1, The Game and the Players, began in November
2009 and ran until March 2010. In this first part the museum
focuses on the stories of artists and exhibition makers. Who
are these “players” within a museum and which stories do
they tell? How was the collection presented in 1983 and how is
this perceived in 2010? How does the current director present
the collection? In what way does an art museum position itself
– both in the present and in the past? These questions were
put up for discussion in The Game and the Players in three
exhibitions: Repetition: Summer Display 1983, Strange and
Close and Rien ne va plus. Part 1 of Play Van Abbe closed in
March 2010 with the project, If I Can’t Dance… Edition III
– The second part of Play Van Abbe, called Time Machines,
opens in April 2010 and will be on view until the end of August 2010. This chapter investigates museum models from the
past, asking: how does the museum use presentation techniques to tell a story and what are the hidden assumptions?
Time Machines includes the exhibitions, Museum Modules
and In-between Minimalisms (10/04 - 12/09/2010), as well as
To the Margin and Back (10/04 - 16/08/2010)