Museum De Pont, where an extra 1,000 flowers are now blooming

One of the most beautiful museums in the Netherlands can be found in Tilburg, a city still seen by some as the frayed edge of the Netherlands. This central part of Brabantstad also receives relatively little funding from the government. So how can one of the best museums in the world be located here? Museum De Pont, like Huis Marseille in Amsterdam and the brand-new Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, is a private museum.

A new wing will open on Saturday 3 September. The museum, built and maintained from a bequest from lawyer and businessman Jan de Pont (1915-1987), will thus realise a 1,100 sq m extension. The new wing is mainly intended for displaying new media. At the same time, shop and restaurant have been substantially overhauled.

Glowing in darkness

The new showroom, 600m2 in size, is a stark contrast to the museum's existing space, flooded by industrial shed roof light. The new showroom is darker, as it is specifically intended for displaying video art, contemporary photography and art that can tolerate less light, such as drawings. Here, the atmosphere is set by gently buzzing beamers that can also be used to show multi-channel projections. Besides the central projection room, there are two separately smaller projection rooms, surrounded by a corridor for displaying works that are sensitive to daylight, for which a lower lighting condition is desirable. Thus, this combination forms a natural transition from subdued light to darkness, where contemporary media art glows.

In addition to this new dark showroom, there is an entirely new museum café-restaurant. The old café-restaurant, which was somewhat cramped for its function, has now been transformed into the museum library. Thus, the museum library shifts to a prominent place, directly in the entrance area of the museum. The glass wall that separated the space from the hall has been retained. This makes the library an inviting gesture to all museum visitors passing here. At the same time, this arrangement emphasises the importance of books, even though the centrally placed work tables have computers with Internet connection. This is a requirement for a contemporary study place.

Drinking under a floating roof

The new museum café-restaurant has been given a 'floating' roof, allowing daylight to flow in here too, uninhibited and in its full glory. The windows set high in the wall form a band around the entire space, so that you do have a direct connection with 'outside' here. From the café-restaurant, you can access the courtyard garden with terrace via the intermediate 'lounge area'. Compared to the old museum café-restaurant, this accommodation is larger and less intimate in character, but filled with visitors, the cosy murmur is as good as ever: so in late summer, the garden terrace is soothing.

Finally, the entrance area: here, too, the layout is more spacious than we were used to. There are more square metres for the museum shop. Earlier, there was only room for a walk-in bookcase and a few tables. Now a retail space has been created where the museum restaurant's kitchen used to be. This makes 'the exit through the bookshop' even more tempting. I am already looking forward to seeing the range, which will soon find a place on the shelves here.

Paradise on the fray

The museum's forecourt is now accessible through the new gatehouse that is a gift from the municipality to the museum. The current entrance gives more view of the facade and the main entrance. The new wing makes the museum more fit for the future.

The most special thing about Museum De Pont -also like Huize Marseille in Amsterdam- is then, of course, that everything is financed from the dividend of a bequest. A small staff thus perform completely independent of government support, a small miracle. A miracle to stimulate contemporary art. A success story in progress, for even now, work continues quietly but with commitment to expand and continue this institution. Even though he is approaching retirement age, Henrik Driessen will stay a while longer to (continue to) work on this seemingly out of time and current conventions paradise.

David Claerbout

The opening of the museum's new wing is now being celebrated with an exhibition by Belgian artist David Claerbout. Earlier in 2009, the exhibition by this Belgian artist was The Shape of Time on show: a dozen video installations that left an indelible impression. David Claerbout's acclaimed video work slowed down the passage of time and evoked wonder and alienation in a magical twilight world.

Now, in the new presentation Future, David Claerbout shows his new way of working. His work now originates in a studio complex in Antwerp, where he works with 16 people. There, he produces two to three works a year, using special 2D and 3D animation techniques. But, even though the technique has changed, his approach to the subject has not. His work is still about slowness and duration, about light falling on things and registration. Present and past become intertwined, with the passage of time no longer providing a foothold to make sense of references to place, event, present or past. Everything becomes adrift, with sometimes the discovery of as yet unnoticed processes such as growth, decay or shifting light binding you to these images, as in 2009.

Claerbout works with camera, computer and projectors, but always starts from sketches on paper. These drawings are shown alongside the film installations for the first time. Not as masterpieces, but as their underpinnings.