2 hour talks with staff members of the Van Abbemuseum and dialogue partners from outside the institution.
Part of the exhibition: The Politics of Collecting – The Collecting of Politics, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2010
Christiane Berndes studied art at Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht and art history at Utrecht University. Worked as assisting curator at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Since 1997 curator of collection at the Van Abbemuseum. Member of the steering committee of the SBMK (Foundation for the conservation of contemporary art) since 2000. As curator of collection she organised several exhibitions of the collection of the museum: ‘One on One’ (2004), ‘Nederland niet Nederland’ (2004-5), ‘What Happened to Art’ (2006) and ‘Plug In; re-imagining the collection’ (2006-2009). Currently she is curator and project leader of ‘Play Van Abbe’, a two years programme around the collection of the museum, including exhibitions, commissions, projects, lectures, publications and a symposium.
IJsbrand Hummelen has been research conservator at the Central Laboratory for Research of Objects of Art and Science (CL) later the Netherlands Institute for Cultural heritage (ICN) since 1992. He trained as a conservator/restorer at the Central Laboratory, the Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zürich and the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro, Rome. He did research and published on the studio practice of Van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman and other artists, on preservation of ethnography collections, conservation theory, conservation management, 19th century painting and new strategies for the conservation of contemporary art. He has been responsible for the content of several national and international research programmes in the field of the preservation of contemporary art.