İstanbul Eind­hoven
SALTVanAbbe

SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata

SALT and Van Abbemuseum are collaborating on a series of exhibitions that bring together works from the Van Abbemuseum collection with selected local positions in the framework of the 400th year of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands. The project aims to enhance and celebrate the growing cultural exchange between the two countries.

İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe will evolve over the course of three exhibitions presented first across both SALT venues throughout 2012. The first exhibition İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: Post ’89 will run from January 27 – April 6, 2012 (SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata) and will focus on art works produced post 1989. This will be followed by two exhibitions, entitled İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: ’68-’89 (April 20 – August 26, 2012; SALT Beyoğlu) and İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: Modern Times (September 14 – December 31, 2012; SALT Galata), partitioned historically, studying the periods 1968-1989 and pre 1968. Following this exhibition process, the local positions presented in the series İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe will be considered for acquisition by the Van Abbemuseum.

In 2005, the Van Abbemuseum presented an exhibition composed from the museum collection and a selection of works shown in the previous eight İstanbul Biennials. Titled Eindhovenİstanbul, this exhibition afforded visitors in the Netherlands the opportunity to see works that were produced for one of the most significant international exhibitions of the last years in combination with the Van Abbemuseum’s renowned modern and contemporary artworks. No longer focused only on West Europe and the United States, a broader idea of the geography and politics of culture was captured in the exhibition. This idea pivoted around global changes that took place during and after the year 1989 and the spread of what might be termed “a global poetics of the contemporary” that eventually had its effect on Europe’s own sense of identity and cultural values. The exhibition thus represented a radical reassessment of the idea of an international collection as previously understood in the Van Abbemuseum and established the basis for the museum to subsequently formulate a new purchasing policy adapted to the global-local dialectic.

Seven years later, during the anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and Turkey, a new opportunity has arisen to reverse the direction of flow. The collaboration between SALT and Van Abbemuseum is realized in the context of a global cultural shift. While institutions in West Europe and the United States are experiencing financial hardship, and losing their traditional cultural support structures and audiences, new power corridors and cultural hubs are being established. İstanbul, Mumbai and Moscow are such examples, where emerging markets and new economies produce a rising demand for institutional cultural services. The new situation presents challenging possibilities and ethical perplexities for West European museums that have sophisticated collections. The SALT and Van Abbemuseum partnership will be a fertile context for debating the role of art museums in the 21st century in the multivalent complexities and changing context of this epic shift.


NLTR 400: 400 years of diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and Turkey



İstanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe is kindly supported by
the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.



Exhibition-related public programs are kindly supported by
The Mondriaan Fund.