Hermitage gets 'first' Outsider Art Museum in the Netherlands

The Hermitage Amsterdam has something 'new': a new museum space in the museum on the river Amstel will be home to the 'first' Outsider Art Museum in the Netherlands from 17 March. With artworks by national and international Outsider artists. Excuse me, new? Does the museum not know at all that Zwolle once had a similar museum, with an extensive collection of outsider art? Outsider art actually returns to the Netherlands after 15 years.

The Hermitage press release speaks of 'Museum recognition for emerging movement in the art world'. With similar terms, a collection of outsider art was brought to Zwolle in 1993. At the time, it included work by artists operating outside the professional art circuit or on the margins of society. For instance, psychiatric patients or people with a mental disability, people living in isolation or struggling to find their place in society.

The former Palace of Justice in Zwolle, which now houses Museum De Fundatie, was home to De Stadshof from 1993 to 2001, a museum that housed naive and outsider art. The then mayor of Zwolle, Loek Hermans, attracted the collection to the city. Art historian Ans van Berkum became director and put her heart and soul into the collection and changing exhibitions. In the end, it ended in a fiasco. The museum was in fact fraudulent with visitor numbers. It could not make ends meet on the subsidy of three quarters of a million guilders (at the time) per year, recorded 'ghost visitors' and had to close its doors in 2001 after this scandal.

Meanwhile, this Paleis aan de Blijmarkt has been home to Museum De Fundatie for years, which attracts many visitors. The Zwolle collection of outsider art, now called The Stadshof Collection, went in 2002 to Museum Dr Guislain, in Ghent, which saw "this internationally renowned collection" as an "enormous expansion". The collection includes work by Willem van Genk. Museum Het Dolhuys in Haarlem, initiator of the 'new' Outsider Art Museum, now has a special Willem van Genk room and collaborates with Museum Dr Guislain.

History

At the Amstel, they see it all differently. ''Of course we know the history of De Stadshof,'' says Carine Neefjes, of Het Dolhuys in Haarlem and the Outsider Art Museum: ''In Zwolle, it was mainly naive art. This will be the first home for national and international outsider art.''

The collection coming to Amsterdam was collected in recent years by Het Dolhuys in Haarlem. The collection continues to grow. It involves hundreds of works by English, French, Iranian, Japanese and Dutch artists. 'We are happy that we now have a place for this collection,' says Carine Neefjes, ''because in Haarlem we have too little space for it and a lot of it is in our depots. We see it as a unique opportunity to exhibit it now in Amsterdam.''

Acknowledgement

Neefjes stresses that the initiative in the Hermitage will also be very different: 'We are working together with Cordaan, a care organisation.' The Hermitage will have two studios for artists from these institutions, some of whom are very talented, they say. Their work will soon also be on display in the Hermitage. 'This museum means recognition, appreciation and understanding for people with a disability,' says Eelco Damen, chairman of Cordaan's Executive Board.

The studios will soon host a special programme that should become the national 'Rijksacademie' for outsider art.'New talents will be identified and artists will be invited to make something,' explains Carine Neefjes. 'The combination of our collection, Cordaan and the studio means we have a unique opportunity to show this art. Especially in The Hermitage. We will have two large rooms near the rooms where the Dutch Masters of the Golden Age now hang. So this is where we show our new masters.'