Background collection

In the exhibition Tweeëntwintigduizendvijfhonderd: De Collectie Almere, aanwinsten 2001-2007 (Twenty-two thousand five hundred: De Collectie Almere, acquisitions 2001-2007) Museum De Paviljoens shows a selection of the enormous amount of art that is offered for sale at art fairs such as Art Amsterdam and Art Rotterdam and via the hundreds of galleries in the Netherlands. Thereby we don't even consider the overwhelming international offering of photography, installations, film and video works. In first instance, buying involves mostly a lot of viewing and enjoying. Only then can one make a selection. Viewing at young and renowned galleries, viewing final exam exhibitions, viewing at artists' initiatives and manifestations such as the Kunstvlaai or projects within the public space like Beyond in Leidsche Rijn.

Viewing exhibitions presented by fellow institutions such as De Vleeshal, De Appel, BAK, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Mediamatic, Marres, Witte de With and renowned museums like Boijmans Van Beuningen, De Pont, Van Abbemuseum, Kröller Müller Museum, Bonnefantenmuseum, Gemeentemuseum Arnhem and Museum Het Domein. Viewing at a cultural institution such as Imagine IC in the Bijlmer district or Platform 21 in Amsterdam's South Axis area. These exhibitions form a part of the frame of reference when spotting and checking developments within contemporary visual arts. Then choices are made with regard to 706The Collection Almere.

Ever since the exhibition space ALEPH, the predecessor of Museum De Paviljoens, was installed in the cellar space of Almere's town hall, Almere has had a tradition of creating works on the spot in the exhibition space that also provide an intrinsic statement on the physical space or the meaning of the city of Almere. Since 2001, two such artworks developed in situ were acquired for De Collectie Almere. Both of these are connected with De Collectie Almere's largest moveable artwork: the five former Documenta buildings by the architects Hilde Daem and Paul Robbrecht. The first work that was acquired is the in situ light installation Love and Happiness (2001) below Pavilion 4, which was made by the duo Bik van der Pol especially for the Almere youngsters who like to hang out there at night. The second one is the installation Safe Zones No 11 (Museum De Paviljoens) (2006) at the restrooms in Pavilion 2 by Jonas Dahlberg. With a sense of humour as well as criticism, he questions how far society wants to go in giving up its privacy when it concerns the role and location of security cameras.

1960s
Work by Almere artists that fits the basic ideas of the exhibition policy and the related purchasing policy: reflection on the polder city of Almere or the urban and rural developments in Flevoland and in relation to the (inter)national developments in visual arts from the 1960s onwards. Why only from the 1960s onwards? That is the period in which the New Town Almere was designed on the drawing board. Museum De Paviljoens is the only museum within the Netherlands with the motto 'Contemporary art in contemporary architecture in a contemporary city' as a guiding principle. Works by three artists from Almere were purchased that feature content which is in line with this policy. Photographer Witho Worms' barite prints of the polder landscape around Almere fits the visual historiography of the city of Almere. In 2005, Worms created a presentation in Museum De Paviljoens entitled In contact met Nagele, 1999-2005 (In touch with Nagele, 1999-2005) as part of the exhibition SITUATIES / Laboratorium Flevoland (SITUATIONS / Laboratory Flevoland) that was composed around different time points. Also purchased was photographer Ruben le Noble's postcard series Groeten Uit Almere (Greetings From Almere, 2005), which shows a more ironic approach to Almere. In 2007, Le Noble gave his vision on the churches of Flevoland with the photo presentation Kerkenproject (Churches project) in Museum De Paviljoens. From the artist Maarten Manson, who has been living in Almere since the late 1970s, a series of minimalist drawings from 1968 was acquired. This was the period in which he, along with artists such as Ad Dekkers, systematically explored geometric compositions under the influence of the Nul movement and the American Minimal Art movement. These drawings complement his stainless steel sculptures within De Collectie Almere that can be found in Almere Haven, Almere Stad and Almere Buiten.

In and outside the walls of the museum
Museum De Paviljoens endeavours to keep De Collectie Almere in storage as little as possible. The works are on view in the exhibitions, in workrooms of Museum De Paviljoens or in the Almere town hall that was designed by architect Cees Dam. This ensures that the widest audience possible is brought into contact with them. This audience consists of Almere locals, thousands of school children from all over Flevoland, as well as art lovers from throughout the Netherlands and far beyond. Collection cards about the artists provide visitors and town hall employees with information on the spot. Photographs by Witho Worms are on view in the Mayor and Aldermen's administrative wing in the town hall, for example, and drawings by Maarten Manson hang in the vicinity of the council chamber. These works remain within the town hall during the exhibition Tweeëntwintigduizendvijfhonderd (Twenty-two thousand five hundred).
In the town hall's main reception room another acquisition that had its origins in Museum De Paviljoens' purchasing policy is on permanent display. It concerns the work Kompaktes Kommunehaus (2001) by Carsten Höller. This acquisition from 2003 was made with the budget for a competition assignment that was organised for the exhibition Eingeladen/Uitgenodigd (Invited) in 2000 but that never materialised.

Over the past few years De Collectie Almere was extended with graphic art by artists whose work was already represented in De Collectie Almere before 2001, such as Jan Roeland, Tiong Ang and Stefan Balkenhol. Those works rotate between the workrooms of the civil servants within city hall. As an addition to the work 1279 AD (2000) by Christiaan Bastiaans, which was purchased by the previous Museum De Paviljoens director Lia Gieling, the work Seeping From Bone To Soil (2006) was included in De Collectie Almere.

Artistprojects
Acquisitions can originate from all of the activities by Museum De Paviljoens, including interactive neighbourhood projects, solo and group exhibitions, publications and artist's projects.
In the near future a special exhibition will pay attention to the series of artworks that were created and acquired via interactive art commissions with the residents of Almere's neighbourhoods. It concerns the projects of Yeb Wiersma, Vanessa Hudig, Saskia Janssen, Kevin van Braak and Rossella Biscotti, Esther Polak and the projects that Joke Robaard and Tilmann Meyer-Faje are in the process of creating in 2007.

Artists who have contributed to the Dutch art history of the past 10 to 15 years are eligible to be featured in solo exhibitions. With that notion, Job Koelewijn's monumental work Jump (2005), the photo series Detitled (2000-2006) by Barbara Visser and the performance work Table (1997) by Yael Davids were acquired for De Collectie Almere. Museum De Paviljoens also considers the purchase of work to be an important form of commitment to the artist. It creates an enduring relationship between the artist and the museum with the goal of managing these artworks and making them available to future generations. In the case of Jump (2005), which requires management of a Dutch ditch, and Table (1997), featuring life performers, that is an interesting challenge.

Experiment
First and foremost, the purchases from the group exhibitions serve to draw attention to current (inter)national trends in contemporary art. The group exhibitions present works by young as well as renowned artists. Thereby, the young artists in particular are given the opportunity to experiment with developing new artworks. From these exhibitions, works by Nicky Zwaan, Gabriel Lester, Chikako Watanabe and Florian Göttke were acquired. In 2002, Nicky Zwaan developed the spatial work Das beste fur die Gäste (The Best for the Guests, 2002) for the exhibition Nonlinear Editing. In 2006, for the exhibition De Stedelijke Conditie / The Urban Condition, Gabriel Lester turned Pavilion 5 into an installation of a duplicated prefab house as a commentary on contemporary house-building and at the same time also to serve as a suggestive film set. Unfortunately, this installation could not be preserved. As part of De Stedelijke Conditie / The Urban Condition, he also showed the video work Urban Surface (2005) that now has been included in De Collectie Almere as a unique work. In 2003, during the exhibition Black My Story, Chikako Watanabe investigated, in collaboration with song performer Yuka Danyen, how the traditions and rituals of the Zuiderzee are still alive in the new land of Flevoland. Two beautiful drawings that now form part of De Collectie Almere remind us of this investigation. Chikako Watanabe playing her interactive Stadsboerderij Sugoroku (City Farm Sugoroku) can be interpreted as an installation. The collaboration with the farmers of Almere's city farm is an extreme form of commitment with respect to the locals. The artist Florian Göttke donated the photo Mountainview to De Collectie Almere as a reminder of the inspiring collaboration for his presentation Borrowed Sceneries at the process-oriented exhibition SITUATIES / Laboratorium Flevoland (Situations / Laboratory Flevoland) in 2004.

Museum De Paviljoens has an interdisciplinary approach when it comes to its programming and collection policy. Graphic design plays an important role in this regard. Regularly, young designers such as goodwill, Alon Levin, Laurenz Brunner, Corine Datema, Ian Brown and Hansje van Halem are given the chance to make the design for the exhibition materials, such as flyers, captions, publications and advertisements, in an experimental and process-oriented way. Commissions for graphic design can also be given a more autonomous character, such as was the case with the project Urban Hymns (2006) by Niels Schrader. Or the 1200 unique titles of the book project Untitled (Never judge a book by its cover) (2003) by goodwill, done for the publication Black My Story that accompanied the exhibition of the same name, 126 copies of which have found a permanent place in De Collectie Almere. In particular, Museum De Paviljoens collects works by designers who have a critical approached to designing. They give expression to the importance of the process-oriented working method that is a central element within a museum laboratory such as Museum De Paviljoens. Two of the publications issued thus far, respectively Black My Story in 2003 and De Paviljoens: Logboek van een Gebouw 1992-2004 (De Paviljoens: Journal of a Building 1992-2004), were declared Best Dutch Book Designs.

Museum De Paviljoens also collects small editions and remarkable publications by other designers and artists. These purchases involve modest budgets, but tickle the imagination just the same. The museum purchased, amongst other things, the publication One Year Celebration (2006) by Pierre Huyghe, the newspapers of Alon Levin and Mark Manders, and the single Autorepeat (2003) that belongs to Nathalie Bruys' sound installation Fly target fly (2003). Other purchases by the museum include the publications a distance of 2444601 feet (2000), a distance of 2232 ells (2000) and a distance of 336 steps (2000) by Stanley Brouwn, the publications Diary (2006), Holy Babel (2006) and World Atlas (2006) by Louis Lüthi, the book A Dark Day of Justice (2005) by Rodolfo Walsh from the series Missing Books, a collaborative project by Maxine Kopsa, Germaine Kruip and Maria Barnas designed by Louis Lüthi, the photo book India (2004) by Cuny Janssen, the publication A Personal Geographic (2006) by Luuk Wilmerink and the various issues of Bode (2003) by Floor Wesseling/Ixopusada.

All activities of Museum De Paviljoens are interconnected and thus De Collectie Almere also grows as a fragile but meticulously woven web that stretches far beyond the museum walls.

Macha Roesink
Director of Museum De Paviljoens