“It is wonderful how, thanks to this unique partnership with our neighbours, these paintings find their way to the Chabot Museum. The architecture of the villa fits perfectly with the zeitgeist in which these works were made.”
Sandra Kisters, Head of Collections & Research at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
up to and including 29 November 2020
Chabot Museum
Art Means Everything
The exhibition ‘Art Means Everything’ – a survey of international Expressionism – opened at the Chabot Museum on 2 June.
It features no fewer than twenty-one works by modern masters from the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, including paintings and a few sculptures by Karel Appel, Hendrik Chabot, Kees van Dongen, James Ensor, Willem de Kooning, Herman Kruyder, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Charley Toorop, Theo Wolvecamp and Ossip Zadkine. ‘Art Means Everything’ is the ninth exhibition in the series ‘Boijmans Next Door’, a unique partnership with arts institutions in Rotterdam to ensure that Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s collection remains visible during the museum’s large-scale renovation and modernisation programme. This project has been made possible by Stichting Droom en Daad.
Modern masters from both museums’ collections together for the first time
‘Boijmans Next Door’ creates new encounters and surprising connections between Boijmans’ collection and those of our neighbouring institutions. This is also the case in ‘Art Means Everything’, in which famous works by modern masters from the collections of the Chabot Museum and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen hang together for the first time.
Together, the works provide a fresh look at Expressionism in the Netherlands and further afield, with works by Monet, Munch and Picasso. The exhibition explores the predecessors of Expressionism, works from the movement’s heyday, and important post-war developments with a selection of iconic works by Appel, Chabot, Constant, de Kooning and Wolvecamp.
Selection of works in 'Art Means Everything'
‘The Night Watch’ of Rotterdam
The title ‘Art Means Everything’ is borrowed from a statement by the artist Constant Nieuwenhuys in which he referred to the liberation of creativity and fantasy, classical cultural perspectives and perceptions of beauty. The exhibition also features the album ‘Louter Genieten’ (Pure Enjoyment) with texts and drawings by Simon Vinkenoog, thus celebrating freedom not only in creativity but also in a broader sense: this year marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands. Hendrik Chabot’s monumental painting ‘Fire of Rotterdam’, painted in the summer of 1940 following the bombing of the city, is a key work in the exhibition.
“ ‘Fire of Rotterdam’ is the museum’s ‘Night Watch’. The bombing is a central event in Rotterdam’s history and there is no other painting of this calibre on the subject. Chabot may have intensified the painting’s expressiveness with the red and yellow, but otherwise this is exactly how he would have seen the enormous plumes of fire from his house on the Rotte river."
Jisca Bijlsma, director Chabot Museum.
Boijmans Next Door
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s collection is being dispersed across Rotterdam and Schiedam. Some 500 masterpieces are being displayed in eleven special exhibitions at eight neighbouring institutions under the title ‘Boijmans Next Door’. The exhibitions in these guest venues create encounters between Boijmans’ collection and those of its neighbours. From February 2021, the Maritime Museum is showing a selection of seascapes, and the Wereldmuseum will be showing masterpieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Van Eijck. As a result, you don’t have to miss out on seeing the collection during the museum’s renovation. ‘Boijmans Next Door’ has been made possible by Stichting Droom en Daad.
Read more about 'Boijmans Next Door’.Transit Boijmans Van Beuningen
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has been closed since 2019 for a large-scale renovation and modernisation project. During this Transit period, the museum is showing its world-class collection in venues throughout Rotterdam and around the world. It has entered into a unique partnership with eight neighbouring venues in the city under the name ‘Boijmans Next Door’. Boijmans is also operating internationally, with travelling exhibitions abroad. At the beginning of the 2019/20 school year, the museum began showing works from the collection in local schools as part of ‘Boijmans in the Classroom’. Since the beginning of 2020, Boijmans, Humanitas and other local partners have been active in a former school in Rotterdam Zuid at Hillevliet 90. With Boijmans Hillevliet, the building regains its function as a place for learning and making. In the meantime, the construction of Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is progressing steadily. The world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility will open in early 2021 and will safely house and display 151,000 works of art.
Read more about Boijmans in Transit
Exhibition on location
This exhibition can be seen at the Chabot Museum. Museumpark 11, 3015 CB Rotterdam. It is only possible to visit the museum in a pre-booked time slot of 30 minutes. For information about openings hours, admission prizes, etc.:
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