CONVERSATIONS
Staff Shares #3
Marie-José Raven interviewed by Valeria Mari
Marie-José Raven interviewed by Valeria Mari
October 20, 2022
As an intern in the Stedelijk’s Research and Curatorial Practice department, Master’s student Valeria Mari researched the new vision put into practice since Rein Wolfs became director in 2019. For her research project Staff Shares: Towards a Museum of Belonging, she interviewed Curator Leontine Coelewij, Head of the Education and Inclusion department Emma Harjadi Herman, Senior Editor Gwen Parry, and Press Officer Marie-José Raven. Her questions arose from her interest in how the Stedelijk is reframing and repurposing its collection to be more inclusive of women artists, gender-diverse makers, as well as artists associated with diaspora. By doing so, she sets out to understand how the Stedelijk is changing its narrative through its research, curatorial practice, education, and publication programs. The interviews will be published weekly throughout October 2022.
VM: When did you start working at the Stedelijk and what do you consider to be the central pillar of the Marketing and Communication department’s approach?
M-JR: I started working at the Stedelijk in 2007. The main goal of the Marketing and Communication department is to reach audiences as much as possible and engage them with the museum. We tell audiences stories mainly through exhibitions and meta information that involves the museum. The department is also responsible for visitor numbers. I am personally responsible for the whole press office, including social media, television, radio, podcasts, and getting press attention.
Press Officer for Marketing and Communication Marie-José Raven at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2022, between Nicolaas Warb, Rythme, 1939, and Marlow Moss, Composition in Red, Black and White, 1953. Photo: Carlos Zepeda.
VM: You have worked at the Stedelijk for fifteen years. How has the shift in directorships over the last ten years impacted the Marketing and Communication department?
M-JR: Every director brings their own style, ideas, and topics that mark their course. So, yes,
the change of directorships over the last ten years has been very influential on the entire program of the museum: for instance, the shift from being a solely artist-driven museum that focuses on artists and art history, to being a multivocal platform focuses on artists, context, and social changes through art history.
Since Rein Wolfs’s directorship, this shift has taken off and is at the center of our conversations and communications.
VM: How has the museum’s community responded to this shift?
M-JR: Many people appreciate how through art we deal with relevant social issues and questions today. Of course, we collected mixed feedback regarding the speed with which the museum deals with those issues. For some people, like activists, the museum is too slow, whereas the museum is too fast for those more conservative. So, the Marketing and Communication department tries to position itself in the middle, mediate between conflicting opinions and be aware that someone will be unhappy. Through the social media that the department manages, we try to reach people directly by answering their questions and gaining their trust. The Marketing and Communication department is very much in tune with what happens in society, taking public opinion seriously, so what people want and need to see from us. With the collaboration of the museum departments, we are working to make the museum as audience-driven as possible.
VM: This provides good insight into the new museum’s vision toward diversity and inclusion and the valuable contribution of your department. Going into more detail, how does Marketing and Communication contribute to making the museum inclusive of women artists, gender diversity, and artists associated with diaspora?
M-JR: We contribute with a more inclusive approach in terms of communication in the press and on social media. For instance, the slogan for the former collection presentation Stedelijk BASE (2017) during Betrix Ruf’s directorship was “Meet the Icons of Modern Art and Design”, which no longer applies to Rein Wolfs’s discourse. Recently, we moved away from the highlights and broadened the slogan. Indeed, the renewed collection presentation has the titles Tomorrow is a Different Day, collection 1980–Now; Everyday, Someday, and Other Stories, collection 1950–1980, and Yesterday Today, collection until 1950, which are more open and no longer assumed. The same has happened with quotes and press interviews, so that we ensure the full platform is given to diverse stories.
VM: This socially efficient approach brings me back to the recent symbolic “momentous” formally distinguishing the Stedelijk’s vision and narratives belonging to the past from those of the present. What does this momentous mean from your perspective as Press Officer Marketing and Communication?
M-JR: Looking back, I remember that the Stedelijk has always been known for its successful temporary exhibitions but did not present the permanent collection, as many tourists and students would have preferred. The availability of specific work on display was unpredictable. Since the 90s, I noticed that internationally collections were rediscovered by museums, the press, and audiences, so even the Stedelijk began to intensify the light it shone on its permanent collection, making it more accessible to the public. Since then, each museum director has sought to enhance and make the museum’s collection relevant. For example, director Ann Goldstein (2010–13) ensured that a woman artist was displayed in every single gallery. Director Beatrix Ruf (2014–17) dedicated the large new lower-level gallery of the Stedelijk (the result of the extension of the building that opened in 2012) to the collection’s icons of art and design, which was revolutionary for the mixed display approach and the freedom to self-navigate that open space. Currently, Wolfs is moving away from those icons by focusing on more diverse stories in the collection.
VM: Thank you for highlighting those crucial moments in the narrative history of the museum. Delving more into the position of women artists in the collection, how do you think the current collection display subverts the dominance of white male artists that are and have been exhibited at the museum? How does the Marketing and Communication department convey that?
M-JR: It starts with the show itself. For example, in the first gallery of Tomorrow is a Different Day, collection 1980–Now, it is significant and quite humorous to display together works by Jeff Koons, Marlene Dumas, and Louise Lawler. Lawler’s 1988 enlarged and stretched photo[1] captured when the museum exhibited the works of the two major works by white men artists, such as Donald Judd and Jeff Koons, by questioning, where are female artists?
I find very witty how curators taken up Lawler’s question by displaying the “iconic” work by Koons, Ushering in Banality (1988) in front of babies playing with their penises in Dumas’s work Big Artists (1991) (fig. 1); I think it is a piece of evidence of the changing perspective in the museum’s narrative. We try to word this narrative in the communications department with the available imagery and by gathering journalists for a press preview in that specific room.
Fig. 1: From left to right: Jeff Koons, Ushering in Banality, 1988; Marlene Dumas, Big Artists, 1991, collection Stedelijk Museum. Exhibition room in Tomorrow is a Different Day, collection 1980–Now, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2022. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij.
The collection presentation Everyday, Someday, and Other Stories, collection 1950–1980 makes a strong statement with the first and last exhibition room dedicated to the stories of women artists, as well as showing works by women artists in the other galleries. The first gallery is positioned precisely opposite that of Koons, Dumas, and Louise Lawler, even though the works belong to two different historical periods in the collection. In general, these rooms help us to recognize the valuable contribution of female artists in the history of art, which was dominated for decades by male artists. For instance, Mary Bauermeister played a marginal role in the eyes of those who wrote art history despite being a pillar of the Fluxus movement. As the Marketing and Communications department, we ensure that such a story is no longer overlooked in our communications as has happened in the past.
The third part of the new collection presentation Yesterday Today, collection until 1950, shows that art and design are closely linked to social developments and pays extra attention to female artists, collectors, curators, and critics (fig. 2). For example, half of the works come from female artists and designers despite the fact that their works make up about the twenty percent of the museum collection.[2] However, we chose a stunning and cool self portrait of Anneke van der Feer as the leading image of the press release, which I hope is socially relevant and representative to the public (fig. 3).
Fig. 2: Some of the works by female members of The Independents (association of visual artists in Amsterdam, 1912) combinated with works collected by female collectors in Yesterday Today, collection until 1950, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2022. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij.
VM: As a communication expert, do you think talking about gender diversity and artists associated with diaspora helps with more equal inclusion within the museum context? Could this risk leaving something else out by highlighting difference rather than eliminating it?
M-JR: I think that to get a particular change, it is inevitable to at first enhance and highlight difference. It is what activists usually do to make crucial changes. The second stage is to get to a level where you do not have to stress it anymore because it has been accepted. Let’s hope we’ll get there soon, but there is still much work to do. From the communications point of view, completely different choices from the past are required: for instance,
we chose the work by Lynda Benglis as the first image instead of the very well-known work by Henri Matisse for the Everyday, Someday, and Other Stories press release. Of course, Matisse’s work is visually attractive and a public favorite, but this time we thought to use it as a second image, giving the stage to Benglis’s work and emphasizing the change in narrative (fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Lynda Benglis, Female Sensibility, 1973, video, color, sound, 13 min., 29 sec., collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Furthermore, in the same collection presentation the work of Surinamese artist Erwin de Vries, Het Magische Oog, 1963, is placed alongside that of Willem de Kooning, Montauk IV, 1969 (fig. 5). The display almost suggests a conversation between the two works, offering visitors a more global view of abstract art in the 50s and 60s. We then chose the photo of this display as one of the leading press photos. We also highlighted the famous Matisse work, La perruche et la sirène (1952–53), in a different narrative than had been offered previously, namely in conversation with the abstract flower forms of Ellsworth Kelly, and Haitian artists Robert Saint-Brice and Gesner Abelard. Overall, the Marketing and Communication team is increasingly aware that it can play a crucial role in changing the narrative by focusing on specific messages and images. Sometimes we have to make less common choices in order to reach new goals and give precedence to something more urgent and socially relevant.
Fig. 5: Erwin de Vries, Het Magische Oog, 1963 (left), and Willem de Kooning, Montauk IV, 1969 (right) in the exhibition room of Everyday, Someday, Other Stories, collection 1950–1980 at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2022. Photo: Peter Tijhuis.
VM: That’s true! Sometimes you have to go against the tide to reach new developments from which everyone can benefit later. Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts. Would you like to add or emphasize anything else not yet addressed in this interview?
M-JR: Yes, thank you! I also find it significant to work with other partners and external curators from whom we can learn how to improve and make our communications efficient. For instance,
we recently discussed whether we should include the artists’ biographical information in the press release, questioning whether mentioning their nationality is essential or only an automatic tendency that could be discriminatory and restrictive. So, we decided to include nationalities only where this is relevant to understanding the work.
The same thing is addressed in the wall texts and all kinds of publications around the collection.
Intern Valeria Mari (left) and Press Officer Marie-José Raven (right) in conversation at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2022. Photo: Carlos Zepeda.
[1] Artist Louise Lawler creates conceptual and installation art based on photographing portraits of other artists’ work. She is interested in examining their display in public manifestations and private collections, and methods used to make them. “Louise Lawler,” Artworks, Artnet, last accessed September 16, 2022.
[2] This percentage has been detected during the analysis of the number of male and female artists in the museum’s collection conducted by the library staff of the Stedelijk Museum. The analysis is still ongoing, and the data mainly refer to independent artists, excluding design studios and collectives. Similarly, the percentages concerning the huge graphic and archival collection, including artists’ books, are still being processed.
Get the latest research, insights, and updates from Stedelijk Studies. Subscribe to the Stedelijk Museum’s Academic Newsletter.