Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2023. Photo: Nina Schollaardt. © Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
The project Stedelijk Studies Masters offers a platform to a new generation of researchers eager to create knowledge in different areas of museum studies. The objective is to facilitate access to recent master’s-level research about, within and around the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s practices, exhibitions, collection, collaborations, and more. These and many other theses receive limited attention outside universities, but here research is made accessible to a wider audience interested in current museology developments.
For the first edition of Stedelijk Studies Masters, seven master’s students were selected. They present a wide variety of topics and methodologies in which the Stedelijk Museum plays a role as research object and subject. The essays will be published on a weekly basis during Spring 2025, and you can find a summary of what’s to come below.
A current and long-standing debate in museum practices is the use of terminology from art historical sources. Three contributors provide a critical look at the histories of how museums have presented certain concepts in the past and present. Ginger van den Akker delivers a historical review of how the concept of ‘modern’ was used in two (industrial) design exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum 50 years apart. Likewise, India Jeffes reflects on how museums approach ‘contemporaneity’, the quality of being in the present, with an international comparison of permanent collection presentations from the Stedelijk and the MNAC – Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado in Lisbon. Olombi Bois also examines the content of museum wall texts, thus providing a system for identifying an artist’s personal information in exhibitions that aims to reduce categorization. These essays suggest how museum professionals could use language in future exhibitions and publications.
Another area of frequent discourse includes the application of curatorial practices in exhibitions. Three contributors recall and examine examples from the Stedelijk Museum’s history to reveal missed opportunities between curatorship and visitor experience. Valeria Mari uses activism and feminist literature to evaluate how theory not always reflects in practice, focusing on the inclusion of women artists in collection galleries. Tom Polleau analyzes his visits to the General Idea retrospective and calls for a balance between the visitor experience and the high number of works displayed in exhibitions. Additionally, Simone de Haan reveals historical and ongoing challenges in reading historical and cultural significances of textiles as artworks. The analysis of the curatorial practices from these exhibitions aims to appropriately address representation, improve visitor experience and widen research to all art visual forms.
Finally, work at the museums would be impossible without the financial mechanisms set in place for its operations. As a result, Ischa Borger notes a present challenge for art museums in the Netherlands: future-proofing subsidies while considering ethical demands from their public. The conclusions of this research would benefit various development and management departments in the cultural sector internationally.
Stay tuned and get your research ready for the second master’s thesis call for research to be released later this year.
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