Istanbul Modern hosts Museums Talk: From the Netherlands” program, on Wednesday, May 14, Sjarel Ex, who served as the Director of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam from 2004 to 2022. The conference series is organized in collaboration with the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Istanbul.
In the second event of the program, Rein Wolfs, the Director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, will give a talk at Istanbul Modern on Tuesday, May 27.
In his talk, Sjarel Ex focuses on the responsibility of museums to develop independently while connecting art and artists with society. In this context, he discusses how museums can reach out to society in transparency, introducing new methods, and exploring the museum medium as a platform for improving and developing the human mind and life. Ex advocates a dynamic role and an open mind to change, to make an art institute of importance and to let it flourish. One of the issues to elaborate on is how collections in storage can become more accessible, known, and of importance to the public. In addition, Ex emphasizes how the history of the 175-year-old art museum connects to the urban identity of Rotterdam, with its history of a port city that was and still is welcoming the influences of different cultures.
Before the talk, the documentary DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans, directed by Sonia Herman Dolz, will be screened. The film focuses on the founding story of the Depot Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Depot), known as the world’s first publicly accessible art storage. The documentary reveals the construction process of the Depot through the narratives of Sjarel Ex—he initiated and surveyed the development of the new Depot—together with Winy Maas, one of the founders of MVRDV, the architectural office behind the building. The film, which includes archival material of the first museum building built in the 1930s, also highlights the fundamental objective behind the Depot’s establishment: to better inform the public about the preservation and restoration of art, and how to work in public/private conditions.
