Stedelijk Studies Journal Issue #11
Exhibiting Surinamese Histories of Art: Curatorial Approaches Towards Diversity
by Oscar Ekkelboom
by Oscar Ekkelboom
In December 2020 the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam opened the exhibition Surinaamse School: Schilderkunst van Paramaribo tot Amsterdam (Surinamese School: Painting from Paramaribo to Amsterdam, 2020–2021). The exhibition displayed over a hundred paintings by thirty-six artists who were born or had worked in Suriname from 1910 to the mid-1980s. In particular, attention was paid to artists who were important for art education and the professionalization of artistic practice in the country. This is an unconventional topic for the Dutch museum, because it has not often displayed the work of Surinamese artists, let alone in the context of a Surinamese national history of art. In general, when delving into the exhibition histories of Dutch art museums, it stands out that little interest is shown in histories of art outside the west.[1]
Yet, it was not for the first time that a history of Surinamese art was on display in the Stedelijk Museum. In December 1996 the museum exhibited Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname, 1975–1995 (Twenty years of visual art in Suriname, 1975–1995, 1996–1997). The exhibition marked the moment of twenty years of political independence in Suriname.[2] This exhibition originally showed a hundred works by twenty-four artists and was curated by Chandra van Binnendijk et al. and exhibited in the Suriname Museum in Paramaribo. One year later, it traveled to the Netherlands with several adaptations by then museum director Rudi Fuchs.
The social context in which these exhibitions have been displayed is striking because they were both organized during times of intense social and political debates about multiculturalism and diversity in the Netherlands. Both in the 1990s and in recent years, political activists and social movements demanded that museums change their practices to better reflect society. We know now that the first exhibition did not bring about a lasting impact on the presentation program of the museum because these are the only two exhibitions highlighting Surinamese histories of art ever displayed in the Stedelijk Museum. The question is, therefore, whether the most recent exhibition with its similar topic is able to contribute to a more lasting appreciation of the work of Surinamese artists in the museum and the Netherlands. This paper discusses both exhibitions in order to learn how Surinamese visual art—if we can speak in such a general way about the work of many artists—has been approached by the museum in different ways. Furthermore, in line with current social debates, the following aims to understand to what extent the most recent exhibition subverted the dominance of western art history that is usually reinforced by the museum.
Before we continue, I would like to address that this paper follows the logic of western academic reasoning. Although the text is critical of modernity’s hegemony as reinforced by western institutions, this paper is indeed written from and for the context of two modern institutions: the University and the Museum. Through this form I will take you, the reader, through my own struggle in the unfinished process of learning to unlearn as part of the process of delinking. Ultimately, while writing this paper I find myself having to perform a balancing act between writing for modern institutions, my personal positionality that carries me across the spectrum of the colonial difference—embodying both privileges and oppressions—and writing about a subject that does not “belong” to me, so to speak. Therefore, instead of (re-)appropriating the work of Surinamese artists, this text explicitly inquires into the curatorial practices of the Stedelijk Museum.
Thinking with decoloniality while analyzing museum displays opens up several perspectives in relation to modernity with which curators might approach art from outside the west. Drawing upon decoloniality, as developed by Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, and Rolando Vázquez (i.a.), who distinguish modern and postcolonial thought from decolonial thinking, this paper develops an analytical method that correspondingly distinguishes three curatorial approaches. First, displays that are still rooted in modern thinking; second, displays that adopt postcolonial approaches that aim to include the “other” within the modern framework; and third, displays that can be considered as decolonial practices because they re-member art histories from outside the west as trajectories that exist parallel to modernity. In addition to analyzing whether the curators have applied “modern,” “postcolonial,” or “decolonial” approaches at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, this paper brings together decoloniality’s inquiry into positionality with memory scholar Michael Rothberg’s category of “the implicated subject”—neither a victim nor a perpetrator in a violent system. This enables questioning how the museum is implicated in modernity/coloniality and to what extent the museum acknowledged its implications in that system in these exhibitions. Must the museum therefore adopt a curatorial practice that operates through a lens of whiteness, or should it move away from its whiteness? And does this ultimately enable the museum to delink from the colonial matrix of power?
In 1999 the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture, and Sciences, Rick van der Ploeg, emphasized the importance of diversity in his cultural policy paper “Cultuur als confrontatie” (Culture as confrontation). He stated that his policy would continue the course of the late 1990s, which was mainly aimed at counteracting one-sidedness (eenzijdigheid doorbreken) and promoting diversity.[3] Before Van der Ploeg, Hedy d’Ancona (Minister of Culture, 1989–1994) was influential in this respect. Especially the emphasis on “multi-” and “interculturality” in museum practice is evident during this period. Although this matter is more complicated and should be seen within the broader social and political situation in the Netherlands at that time, the problem that certain communities in Dutch society had little access or were not involved in the cultural sector resonated in museum projects that were aimed at the democratization of art throughout the Netherlands. Therefore, following postcolonial thinkers like Bhabha, Hall, Araeen, and Enwezor, many museums initiated so-called “intercultural projects” with which they reached out to minority cultural groups as new publics.[4]
That Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname must be viewed in this light becomes apparent from the correspondence between Henk Jan Gortzak, then director of the Tropenmuseum, and Fuchs. Gortzak, who was initially approached by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to plan the exhibition in the Netherlands, proposed to organize the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum because of the artistic quality of the work, adding between brackets: “Considering the fact that you cannot read a municipal or government memorandum that does not mention new audiences.”[5] The exhibition was indeed seen by a remarkably large group of (Dutch-)Surinamese visitors, many of whom had never been to the museum before.[6 ]In regard to the democratization of art, this exhibition was thus considered to be a success at that time, however, the drawing in of a new audience was only temporary and the artworks themselves quickly disappeared from the museum displays.
It turned out that the appreciation of the Surinamese national history of art was temporary as well, because it took twenty-four years before an exhibition with a similar topic was on display in the Stedelijk Museum again. And this was not necessarily due to a revaluation of Surinamese artists. Surinaamse School was only organized when the debate about cultural diversity and inclusion in Dutch society flared up again. In the wake of social movements such as Black Lives Matter, activists demanded a response from museums.[7] Policymakers responded by encouraging museums to diversify their organizations and displays. For example, through the Diversity and Inclusion Code (launched in 2011 and renewed in 2019) and the Dutch Council for Culture’s sector advice In wankel evenwicht (2018), which advocated for a remuneration policy through subsidies for projects that implement the code.[8]
By endorsing this code, the Stedelijk Museum set itself the goal of representing the broad diversity of Dutch society. According to museum director Rein Wolfs, Surinaamse School is a step in that direction, and it should provide an impetus to increase diversity in the collection as well.[9] But in which direction is the museum moving by displaying art from outside the modern canon of western art history? And does “diversity” actually meet what the social debate is about? Critical thinkers such as Vázquez argue that more fundamental changes are needed in order to overcome the actual problems of systemic discrimination and racism in Dutch society and museums.[10] Therefore, to understand the present debate in more detail, the following section explores how to think with decoloniality in art and curatorial studies.
Central to decolonial thought, as expressed by Quijano, is the idea that Europe’s colonial project (along with suppressing and exploiting people’s bodies and their native soil throughout the world) has put modernity forward as a universal Totality that negates and excludes the possibility of other totalities. The Peruvian sociologist first linked the European colonial project with the modern production of knowledge, stating that “Europe thought of itself as the mirror of the future of all the other societies and cultures; as the advanced form of the history of the entire species.”[11] In other words, the persistent view of the modern subject is that it considers other trajectories of thought to always be in a state of becoming modern, yet they will never reach a modern state of being. Since the colonization of the Americas around 1500, the idea that European knowledge, aesthetics, and worldviews are the framework of recognition for all has been dominant. Thinking with decoloniality means to move away from this universal conception of modernity by considering it not as a world-historic period, but as a specific genealogy of European civilization.
Although decoloniality is primarily aimed at the re-existence and resurgence of the totalities that modernity/coloniality erases, decoloniality also provides an analytic framework by presenting three perspectives of modernity. First is the modern view that considers modernity as a world-historic period in which European knowledge and culture are superior to other worlds of meaning. By presenting European knowledge as universal, this logic largely negates and erases other trajectories of thought as autonomous and self-reliant totalities. The second viewpoint is the postcolonial, which claims recognition for the “other” within the framework of modernity. By pointing to the share of the other within the developments of modernity, postcolonial scholars state that modernity would not have been possible without them. Thereby they challenge the Eurocentric narrative of modernity, but they maintain modernity as the framework of recognition. The third viewpoint is the decolonial perspective that describes modernity as a specific genealogy of western civilization and recognizes other trajectories of thought as independent totalities that are not reducible to the history of modernity. Decoloniality argues that all worlds of meaning, including the modern, come from a particular location and are valuable in relation to the history of that location.
These different ways of thinking provide us with a possible framework for analysis, because the interest in this paper extends to the ways in which the Stedelijk Museum has contextualized Surinamese art. The three views of modernity, consequently, form a theoretical basis for the conceptualization of three curatorial viewpoints. The first is rooted in modern thinking and therefore centers on western art. Displays that adopt this perspective present the canon of western art as a global history and thereby negate art from elsewhere or present it as inferior to western art. Visual material from outside the west is often displayed in the context of ethnology or anthropology and presented as primitive, naïve, or pre-modern—all synonyms for undeveloped—to contrast the developed art of the west. When these artifacts are brought up in the context of visual art, they are merely considered for their significance to western art, for example, in relation to the developments of avant-garde art movements. The second curatorial viewpoint adopts postcolonial thought. It sustains the modern narrative by taking the western canon of art as a framework of recognition, but it claims a position for non-western artists within that framework. It shows how the “other” has not only been a source of inspiration for western artists, but that artists from around the world have actively participated in and contributed to the developments in modern art. The third viewpoint derives from decoloniality. It takes a different strategy by positioning modern art specifically as a product of western civilization and recognizes it in its own locality. Art from outside the west is not as a matter of course displayed in relation to the western canon of art. However, since the Museum has been a pivotal actor in the modern production of knowledge, it is doubtful if museums in the west can adopt a decolonial approach at all. At least, according to Vázquez, they “are not in a strong position to engage in de-linking.”[12] In other words, it seems museums are unable to create inclusive displays as long as they reproduce the legacies of modernity without acknowledging its implications with coloniality (e.g., through the western canon of art).
This leaves museums with a difficult task, because how can they acknowledge and come to terms with a situation where contemporary and historical problems of responsibility intersect? Mignolo stated that it is necessary that museums “delink” from the terms of recognition that sustain the modern/colonial order to bring other epistemologies and other principles of knowledge and understanding to the foreground.[13] The first step in that process for museums, according to Vázquez, is “understanding their monocultural formation and their implications in intersectional forms of exclusion.”[14 ]In other words, museums must learn to engage their positionality within the colonial matrix of power—within modernity/coloniality.
To explore how museums can engage their positionality within their displays, it might be useful to think with memory scholar Rothberg’s notion of “the implicated subject,” which serves as an umbrella term that “gathers a range of subject positions that sit uncomfortable in our [western] familiar conceptual space of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders.”[15] Rothberg introduced this category in order to inquire into positionalities that participate in violent systems and injustices, but in indirect ways. “Foregrounding implication instead of victimhood or perpetration allows us to emphasize the dynamic interplay between subjectivity, structural inequality, and historical violence.”[16] As is addressed by decolonial thinkers, modern Euro-centered institutions like the Museum have never really understood their contribution to the coloniality of knowledge and racial violence operated through forms of exclusion. Bringing their implication in this into focus will help confronting historical and contemporary problems of responsibility. According to Rothberg, that requires not just an end to policies of discrimination in the present “but also an active reconstruction of the historically sedimented layers of society.”[17] In regard to curatorial practice, displaying previously excluded art contributes only partially to the re-existence and resurgence of negated and erased totalities. Therefore, in addition, museums must articulate how they are implicated in the colonial matrix of power before they can free themselves from coloniality. To investigate which strategies museums can adopt, the following analysis will examine the ways in which the Stedelijk Museum has reconstructed the historical sediments of society through displaying the work of Surinamese artists.
Central to decolonial thought, as expressed by Quijano, is the idea that Europe’s colonial project (along with suppressing and exploiting people’s bodies and their native soil throughout the world) has put modernity forward as a universal Totality that negates and excludes the possibility of other totalities. The Peruvian sociologist first linked the European colonial project with the modern production of knowledge, stating that “Europe thought of itself as the mirror of the future of all the other societies and cultures; as the advanced form of the history of the entire species.”[11] In other words, the persistent view of the modern subject is that it considers other trajectories of thought to always be in a state of becoming modern, yet they will never reach a modern state of being. Since the colonization of the Americas around 1500, the idea that European knowledge, aesthetics, and worldviews are the framework of recognition for all has been dominant. Thinking with decoloniality means to move away from this universal conception of modernity by considering it not as a world-historic period, but as a specific genealogy of European civilization.
Although decoloniality is primarily aimed at the re-existence and resurgence of the totalities that modernity/coloniality erases, decoloniality also provides an analytic framework by presenting three perspectives of modernity. First is the modern view that considers modernity as a world-historic period in which European knowledge and culture are superior to other worlds of meaning. By presenting European knowledge as universal, this logic largely negates and erases other trajectories of thought as autonomous and self-reliant totalities. The second viewpoint is the postcolonial, which claims recognition for the “other” within the framework of modernity. By pointing to the share of the other within the developments of modernity, postcolonial scholars state that modernity would not have been possible without them. Thereby they challenge the Eurocentric narrative of modernity, but they maintain modernity as the framework of recognition. The third viewpoint is the decolonial perspective that describes modernity as a specific genealogy of western civilization and recognizes other trajectories of thought as independent totalities that are not reducible to the history of modernity. Decoloniality argues that all worlds of meaning, including the modern, come from a particular location and are valuable in relation to the history of that location.
These different ways of thinking provide us with a possible framework for analysis, because the interest in this paper extends to the ways in which the Stedelijk Museum has contextualized Surinamese art. The three views of modernity, consequently, form a theoretical basis for the conceptualization of three curatorial viewpoints. The first is rooted in modern thinking and therefore centers on western art. Displays that adopt this perspective present the canon of western art as a global history and thereby negate art from elsewhere or present it as inferior to western art. Visual material from outside the west is often displayed in the context of ethnology or anthropology and presented as primitive, naïve, or pre-modern—all synonyms for undeveloped—to contrast the developed art of the west. When these artifacts are brought up in the context of visual art, they are merely considered for their significance to western art, for example, in relation to the developments of avant-garde art movements. The second curatorial viewpoint adopts postcolonial thought. It sustains the modern narrative by taking the western canon of art as a framework of recognition, but it claims a position for non-western artists within that framework. It shows how the “other” has not only been a source of inspiration for western artists, but that artists from around the world have actively participated in and contributed to the developments in modern art. The third viewpoint derives from decoloniality. It takes a different strategy by positioning modern art specifically as a product of western civilization and recognizes it in its own locality. Art from outside the west is not as a matter of course displayed in relation to the western canon of art. However, since the Museum has been a pivotal actor in the modern production of knowledge, it is doubtful if museums in the west can adopt a decolonial approach at all. At least, according to Vázquez, they “are not in a strong position to engage in de-linking.”[12] In other words, it seems museums are unable to create inclusive displays as long as they reproduce the legacies of modernity without acknowledging its implications with coloniality (e.g., through the western canon of art).
This leaves museums with a difficult task, because how can they acknowledge and come to terms with a situation where contemporary and historical problems of responsibility intersect? Mignolo stated that it is necessary that museums “delink” from the terms of recognition that sustain the modern/colonial order to bring other epistemologies and other principles of knowledge and understanding to the foreground.[13] The first step in that process for museums, according to Vázquez, is “understanding their monocultural formation and their implications in intersectional forms of exclusion.”[14 ]In other words, museums must learn to engage their positionality within the colonial matrix of power—within modernity/coloniality.
To explore how museums can engage their positionality within their displays, it might be useful to think with memory scholar Rothberg’s notion of “the implicated subject,” which serves as an umbrella term that “gathers a range of subject positions that sit uncomfortable in our [western] familiar conceptual space of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders.”[15] Rothberg introduced this category in order to inquire into positionalities that participate in violent systems and injustices, but in indirect ways. “Foregrounding implication instead of victimhood or perpetration allows us to emphasize the dynamic interplay between subjectivity, structural inequality, and historical violence.”[16] As is addressed by decolonial thinkers, modern Euro-centered institutions like the Museum have never really understood their contribution to the coloniality of knowledge and racial violence operated through forms of exclusion. Bringing their implication in this into focus will help confronting historical and contemporary problems of responsibility. According to Rothberg, that requires not just an end to policies of discrimination in the present “but also an active reconstruction of the historically sedimented layers of society.”[17] In regard to curatorial practice, displaying previously excluded art contributes only partially to the re-existence and resurgence of negated and erased totalities. Therefore, in addition, museums must articulate how they are implicated in the colonial matrix of power before they can free themselves from coloniality. To investigate which strategies museums can adopt, the following analysis will examine the ways in which the Stedelijk Museum has reconstructed the historical sediments of society through displaying the work of Surinamese artists.
Initially, the exhibition Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname was organized in the Suriname Museum in Paramaribo on the occasion of the celebration of twenty years of Surinamese independence. To celebrate this event, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered this exhibition as an anniversary gift.[18] The project was carried out by Chandra van Binnendijk and Paul Faber in partnership with the Suriname Museum, the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Museum voor Volkenkunde in Rotterdam. They established a well-founded support structure within Surinamese society, and with the help of an expert group (including Glenn Fung Loy, Joyce Gevers, Rudi Gertrouw, Henk van der Plas, Imro Themen, Carla Tuinfort, and Paul Woei) they compiled an exhibition of a hundred artworks by twenty-four (only male) artists: Reinier Asmoredjo, Anand Binda, Carlos Blaaker, Jules Chin A Foeng, Ray Daal, Ron Flu, Glenn Fung Loy, Rudi Gertrouw, Soeki Irodikromo, Paul Irodikromo, Remy Jungerman, Ruben Karsters, Rinaldo Klas, John Lie A Fo, Egbert Lieveld, Stuart Robles de Medina, Cliff San A Jong, Imro Themen, René Tosari, Erwin de Vries, Paul Woi, Leo Wong Loi Sing, Michael Wong Loi Sing, and Sirano Zalman.[19] Among them, several had already exhibited in the Netherlands, but their work had primarily been displayed in ethnography museums and never together—in the context of a national history—in a museum for modern and contemporary art in the Netherlands. When their work was displayed in the new wing of the Stedelijk Museum in December 1996, many saw this event as the artistic recognition of Surinamese artists, since it elevated their work from ethnography to modern art.[20]
The exhibition showed an overview of the history of Surinamese visual art, of which the plurality of artistic styles and subject matter reflected the diversity of Surinamese society. It is important to mention that the compilers decided to focus exclusively on “autonomous art,” which means they concentrated the exhibition around the western tradition of modern art. In the exhibition catalogue, Van Binnendijk and Faber acknowledged that “memorable works were also generated in the same period by Indian and Bush Negro artists, for instance, whose art embroiders on their artistic traditions.”[21 ]The work of these indigenous peoples and Maroons in Suriname, however, differed too much from modern art, according to Van Binnendijk and Faber, and “to combine the two would do justice to neither.” The exhibition, eventually, showed a harmonious composition of paintings and several sculptures. It is notable that almost exclusively figurative art was shown, the majority of which depicted street scenes and the people of Suriname. Furthermore, it is striking that, as in the western tradition, a large number (about 20%) of the paintings depicted the female nude.
When this exhibition traveled to the Netherlands, however, the Stedelijk Museum did not reproduce the exhibition in its entirety. Director Fuchs and curator Maarten Bertheux saw the exhibition in Paramaribo and during that trip they selected thirty-five additional works in artists’ studios. Their selection deviated from the original criteria by including works that were not necessarily made in Suriname or were created outside the period 1975–1995. Art historian Ingrid Braam argues that it is possible that Fuchs wanted to make his own contribution to the exhibition.[22]
He did so, for example, by adding several “nature paintings” by Anand Binda. This choice is striking because it does not reflect the view of the majority of Surinamese artists of their country. Fuchs had noticed that few artists took nature as their subject matter, yet it was his view that nature in Suriname was overwhelming. By emphasizing “nature” in his additional selection, Fuchs’s view of Suriname determined the outlook of the exhibition in Amsterdam to a great extent. And by placing “nature” over “culture” he seemed to determine what Surinamese artists should depict. While emphasizing nature may at first seem like an innocent decision, it does show the perspective with which Surinamese art was displayed, and thus viewed by the public. I highlight this choice because, first, it reflects the modern view of the “other”—who in a modern perspective is often considered to be closer to nature (and thus less developed and civilized) than citizens of the west—and second, because it demonstrates how the museum imposed that view onto the “other.” In doing so, the museum is explicitly implicated in the coloniality of knowledge because it appropriated the history of Surinamese art and distorted that history by reinterpreting it through a white European lens. We must therefore be aware that the history of Surinamese art as displayed in the Stedelijk Museum must be considered within the framework in which it was created.
The fact that Fuchs was not very fond of Surinamese art is also apparent from a much-cited interview about the exhibition. He stated that there was not a single really good one among the artists in this exhibition. In addition he described Surinamese art as “a variant of Dutch painting that has slowly become stuck in the mud.”[ 23] Although the metaphor about the “mud” was immediately criticized, art historian Myra Winter noticed that little attention was paid to the fact that Fuchs had placed Surinamese art in the realm of anthropology or ethnology in this interview.[24]
It appears the Stedelijk Museum and the Suriname Museum clearly approached Surinamese art through different perspectives; however, they both contextualized the artworks through a Eurocentric lens. While the Stedelijk Museum took a modern approach by considering Surinamese art as inferior to western art, the Suriname Museum approached it from a postcolonial point of view by claiming recognition within the canon of modern art. Although this claim was somewhat honored by the Stedelijk Museum, no real recognition was given considering both Fuchs’s comments and the fact that it took twenty-four years before another exhibition about the history of Surinamese art was displayed in the Stedelijk Museum.
In 2020 the idea for the exhibition about the history of Surinamese art did not come from the museum itself, either. Initially, independent researcher Ellen de Vries proposed to organize an exhibition titled The School of Nola Hatterman, about the twentieth-century Dutch artist Nola Hatterman. In 1953, Hatterman moved from the Netherlands to Suriname, where she started teaching visual arts at the Cultureel Centrum Suriname. With her teaching methods and encouragement, she played an important role in establishing art education in Suriname. During the conceptualization of the exhibition, however, in consultation with a team of guest curators, including Jessica de Abreu, Mitchell Esajas, Bart Krieger, and Ellen de Vries, and museum staff members Inez Blanca van der Scheer, Claire van Els, and Carlien Lammers, it was decided to broaden the exhibition concept and focus on the developments in Surinamese painting between the 1910s and 1980s.[25] Because it was impossible to take the collection of the Stedelijk Museum as a starting point for this exhibition, the museum was forced to rely on the knowledge of artists, their relatives, and collectors in Suriname and the Netherlands.
Ultimately, the museum displayed over a hundred artworks by thirty-six artists: Armand Baag, Wim Bos Verschuur, Robert Bosari, Jules Chin A Foeng*, Frank Creton, Augusta and Anna Curiel, Felix de Rooy, Robbert Doelwijt, Wilgo Elshot, Ron Flu*, Rudi Getrouw*, Leo Glans, Eddy Goedhart, Nola Hatterman, Soeki Irodikromo*, Rihana Jamaludin, Jean Georges Pandellis, Rinaldo Klas*, Noni Lichtveld, Hans Lie, Guillaume Lo-A-Njoe, Nic Loning, Rudy Maynard, Jacques Anton Philipszoon, George Ramjiawansingh, Stuart Robles de Medina*, George Gerhardus Theodorus Rustwijk, Cliff San A Jong*, Gerrit Schouten, Govert Jan Telting, Quintus Jan Telting, René Tosari*, Erwin de Vries*, Paul Woei*, and Leo Wong Loi Sing*. Eleven of them (marked with an asterisk) were also included in the 1996 exhibition. Furthermore, it is interesting that, despite the aspiration to be inclusive and represent minorities, only five women artists are included in this exhibition. Considering the fact that Augusta and Anna Curiel are photographers, and Nola Hatterman is Dutch, we might paraphrase Linda Nochlin by asking: Why have there been no great Surinamese women painters?
As the title of the exhibition suggests, the curators focused primarily on developments in art education and on a number of pioneers who have manifested themselves as art educators, including Pandellis, Bos Verschuur, and Hatterman, which presumably stems from the original exhibition concept. The exhibition started with a diorama made in 1839 by Gerrit Schouten, who was presented as the first Surinamese artist. Subsequently, visitors were guided past photography by the sisters Augusta and Anna Curiel. They worked in the early twentieth century and, according to the curators, their photography was strongly influenced by wealthy patrons, so that the oppression of the colonizer remains unseen.[26] Their work, however, contributed strongly to the modern/colonial image of Suriname in the Netherlands. The picture Paramaribo, verkooplokaal van de vlechtschool van het Maria Patronaat (Paramaribo, the sales room at the Maria Patronaat wicker-working school, ca. 1925) is especially interesting in this regard because it is part of a series about the Maria Patronage in Paramaribo, where missionary sisters taught young Surinamese women and girls not only the Christian religion, but also all kinds of handicrafts according to Dutch insight. In this image, therefore, lies the modern/colonial urge to civilize the other. However, De Abreu’s essay in the exhibition reader and the display do not provide the critical curatorial contextualization that this mission concerned not only “civilization” through religion but also included the entire doings of the Surinamese population. Therefore, the display unconsciously reproduces the colonial image of Suriname and, by extension, the coloniality of power. Moreover, the reason for including the work of Augusta and Anna Curiel in an exhibition that explicitly focuses on Surinamese painting is unclear.
The exhibition discussed the dominance of European culture in Suriname in a more nuanced way in the subsequent rooms, which focused on pioneers of art education who trained Surinamese artists according to European tradition.[27] And although the museum acknowledges that Surinamese painting was evidently influenced by the west, the exhibition considers this history nevertheless as a specific genealogy of Suriname. In contrast to the 1996 exhibition, in 2020 the curators decided to not use the western history of art as the framework of recognition. Instead, they demonstrated that the history of Surinamese art runs parallel to the European history of art and that Surinamese art is not in a state of becoming modern. This became especially apparent in the exhibition spaces where several themes were explored, such as portraiture, religion, and daily life. Although these subjects also occur in the European tradition, Surinamese artists interpreted them in different ways based on their own experiences. By recognizing this history in its own locality, the exhibition indeed seemed to view Surinamese art through a decolonial lens.
We must, however, remain aware of the fact that the curators selected the central themes in this exhibition. As with Fuchs, who emphasized nature as a crucial subject, the themes in this exhibition are also determined by individuals with their own local and temporal view of the history of Surinamese art. The risk that the curatorial decisions (which are established in the Netherlands) become decisive for the ways Surinamese art is viewed in general is especially high, because exhibitions about the history of Surinamese art are exceptional. One of the decisions that stands out in this exhibition is that along the thematic lines the resistance against the Dutch colonizer always shines through. The exhibition focused explicitly on the political decolonization from the Netherlands and not so much on decoloniality, which is about delinking from the modern epistemological framework. With this curatorial emphasis, Surinamese art is thus nevertheless displayed in the context of the Netherlands.
Ultimately, it turns out that exhibiting the history of Surinamese art in the Stedelijk Museum is a complex affair. Not least because the history is strongly influenced by Dutch educators or academies, as demonstrated in both Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname and Surinaamse School. One can conclude from these exhibitions that the impact of the west on Surinamese painting is undeniable. However, the analysis also showed that this view should not be taken for granted because it originates in decisions made by Dutch curators. I am therefore curious what an exhibition about the history of Surinamese art would look like if European interference were completely left out of consideration. Could it then be possible to display Surinamese painting together with the work of indigenous and Maroon artists? What perspectives and insights could viewing these paintings through the lens of local knowledges deliver? Such an approach would place Surinamese painting in a different locality, but this also omits a major historical influence. And what would be a suitable location for such an exhibition?
Can the Stedelijk Museum be a suitable location? In other words, can the museum embrace decoloniality? In order to do so, decoloniality first asks a subject to learn and acknowledge how it is implicated in the colonial matrix of power. It appears in Surinaamse School that the museum did not do so. Only once, albeit in a generalizing way, did the curators question: “What is or can be the role of (white) Dutch people and institutions in the decolonization of Surinamese art?”[28] However, this reflects a paternalistic modern attitude rather than inquiring into the museum’s own role in the erasure and negation of knowledges and aesthesis that exist besides modernity. In fact, it reinforced modernity’s hierarchy by asking: What can “we” do to help the “other”? In this way, the museum continued reproducing the oppressive systems of modernity and failed to face what is at the heart of this exhibition: the present societal debate about the erasure of knowledges and the re-existence and resurgence of worlds of meaning and sensing that exist beside modernity. Through this act of appropriation, the Stedelijk Museum finds itself still implicated in the violence towards the “other.” Not as a direct perpetrator, yet entangled in the system of oppression and exclusion, being what Rothberg categorized as an implicated subject.
It would be more humble, following Vázquez, and thought-provoking if the museum asks: What role can the work of Surinamese artists fulfill in the decolonization of Dutch institutions like the Stedelijk Museum? By tilting the question and instead emphasizing the museum’s “decolonization,” the museum might start speaking from a position of equality that places modernity beside—and not above—other trajectories of thought. To embrace decoloniality as a modern institution thus starts with learning and acknowledging how it is presently and historically implicated in modernity/coloniality. If a museum operates through a lens of whiteness then it should speak from that position, because only then might the museum disrupt modernity’s claim of universality and start delinking from the colonial matrix of power.
In December 2020 the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam opened the exhibition Surinaamse School: Schilderkunst van Paramaribo tot Amsterdam (Surinamese School: Painting from Paramaribo to Amsterdam, 2020–2021).
Oscar Ekkelboom (PhD candidate at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands) researches curatorial practices in Dutch art museums through a decolonial lens. His research project examines to what extent Dutch art museums come to terms with their implications in modernity/coloniality.
[1] In this text, “west” and “western” are not capitalized because it considers the “west” not as a specific geographical region. The west is only west as the antonym of the east, which is a modern dichotomy that the subtext of this paper seeks to disrupt. Therefore, this text deviates from the Webster’s English Dictionary.
[2] From 1667 until 1954, Suriname was colonized by the Netherlands, and before it became fully independent as the Republic of Suriname in 1975, the country was a constituent state of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Due to this history, a large Surinamese community lives in the Netherlands. With over 350,000 people in May 2021, this is the third-largest group with a migration background (first and second generation) in the Netherlands. “Hoeveel mensen met een migratieachtergrond wonen in Nederland?,” CBS, accessed June 4, 2021,
https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/dossier/dossier-asiel-migratie-en-integratie/hoeveel-mensen-met-een-migratieachtergrond-wonen-in-nederland-.
[3] Rick van der Ploeg, Cultuur als confrontatie (The Hague: Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sciences, 1999), 4. “De uitgangspunten die voor het cultuurbeleid in de jaren 1997–2000 naar voren werden geschoven, waren er reeds voor een belangrijk deel op gericht die eenzijdigheid te doorbreken.”
[4] Hans O. van den Berg and Maaike Verbeek, eds., Culturele diversiteit in Nederlandse musea: 32 interculturele projecten 1994–1998 (Amsterdam: Mondriaan Fund, 1999).
[5] Correspondence H.J. Gortzak and R. Fuchs, September 7, 1995, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Archive. “In eerste instantie komt het Tropenmuseum in aanmerking. Maar om heel eerlijk te zijn, gezien de kwaliteit van het werk (en het feit dat je geen gemeentelijke of rijksnotat kunt lezen waar gesproken wordt over nieuwe publieksgroepen) dacht ik ‘Waarom niet in de nieuwe vleugel van het Stedelijk?’”
[6] Ingrid Braam, “Surinaamse kunst in Nederland: De betekenis van ‘Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname, 1975–1995’” (master’s thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2013), 43.
[7] See Aruna D’Souza, Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in 3 Acts (New York: Badlands Unlimited, 2018); Susan Cahan, Mounting Frustration: The Art in the Age of Black Power (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016).
[8] Dutch Council for Culture, In wankel evenwicht (The Hague: Raad voor Cultuur, 2018), 67.
[9] Rein Wolfs, “Voorwoord,” Surinaamse School van Amsterdam tot Paramaribo, exh. reader (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2020), 4.
[10] Rosa Wevers, “Decolonial Aesthesis and the Museum: An Interview with Rolando Vázquez Melken,” Stedelijk Studies 8 (2019): 6–7.
[11] Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” Cultural Studies 21 (2007): 2–3, 168–78, doi: 10.1080/09502380601164353, 176.
[12] Wevers, “Decolonial Aesthesis and the Museum,” 8.
[13] Walter D. Mignolo, “DELINKING,” Cultural Studies 21 (2007): 2–3, 449–514, doi:10.1080/09502380601162647, 450–53.
[14] Rolando Vázquez Melken, Vistas of modernity: decolonial aesthesis and the end of the contemporary (Amsterdam: Mondriaan Fund, 2020), 161–62.
[15] Michael Rothberg, The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019), 13.
[16] Ibid., 35.
[17] Ibid., 11.
[18] Chandra van Binnendijk and Paul Faber, eds., Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname, 1975–1995 (Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1995), 8.
[19] Ibid., 11. Van Binnendijk and Faber republished the exhibition catalogue in 2000 with several adjustments. The updated publication included four women artists: Sharda Devi-Harkoe, Nola Hatterman, Anita Hartmann, and Kit-Ling Tjon Pian Gi. See Braam, “Surinaamse kunst in Nederland,” 40–41.
[20] Myra Winter “Een artistiek bemiddelaar tussen Nederland en Suriname,” in Kunsten in beweging 1900–1980, eds. Rosemarie Buikema and Maaike Meijer (The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers, 2003), 257–74, 271.
[21] Van Binnendijk, Twintig jaar beeldende kunst in Suriname, 99.
[22] Braam, “Surinaamse kunst in Nederland,” 34.
[23] Frénk van der Linden “Museumdirecteur Rudi Fuchs: ‘Het ergste van vreemdgaan is de ontrouw aan jezelf’” NRC, November 2, 1996. “Wat straks in het Stedelijk te zien zal zijn is een traag in de modder vastgelopen variant op de Nederlandse schilderkunst.”
[24] Winter, “Een artistiek bemiddelaar tussen Nederland en Suriname,” 272.
[25] Bart Krieger and Claire van Els, “De ontwikkeling van Surinaamse School,” in Surinaamse School van Amsterdam tot Paramaribo, exh. reader (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2020), 6–9. Krieger and Van Els acknowledge that collaboration with curators or partners in Suriname would be desirable for a future project. They do not mention whether such collaboration would have benefited this project as well.
[26] Surinaamse School van Amsterdam tot Paramaribo, exh. reader (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2020), 36.
[27] Ibid., 41.
[28] Ibid., 48.
Oscar Ekkelboom, ”Exhibiting Surinamese Histories of Art: Curatorial Approaches Towards Diversity” Stedelijk Studies Journal 11 (2022). DOI: 10.54533/StedStud.vol011.art06. This contribution is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Twenty-First-Century Challenges for the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and Design
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