- Van Abbemuseum
Stratumsedijk 2
Postbus 235
NL- 5600AE Eindhoven
Charles Esche
The University of the Arts, Exhibitions, Faculty Member
- History, Philosophy, Political Science, Art History, Art, Culture, and 13 moreVisual Studies, Contemporary art history and institutional history of museums, Exhibitions, Cultural Studies, Contemporary Art, Postcolonial Studies, Museum Studies, Poverty, Memory, History of Museums, Global cities, Istanbul, and Urban Renewaledit
- Charles Esche is a curator and writer. He is director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; professor of contemporary art... moreCharles Esche is a curator and writer. He is director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; professor of contemporary art and curating at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London and a visiting lecturer at the Centre of Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York. He is series editor of Exhibition Histories published by Bard College and Afterall and distributed by the University of Chicago Press.
In 2014 he received the Audrey Irmas CCS Bard College Prize for Curatorial Excellence at a ceremony in New York City.
In 2016, he curated Le Musée Égaré for Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse. In 2015 he curated the Jakarta Biennale with 6 Indonesian colleagues and in 2014, he was curator of the 31st Sao Paulo Bienal with a team of seven. In addition, he has (co-) curated a number of major international exhibitions including U3 Triennale, Ljubljana (2011); Riwaq Biennale, Ramallah with Reem Fadda (2007 & 2009); Istanbul Biennale with Vasif Kortun (2005); Gwangju Biennale with Hou Hanru (2002); Amateur Gothenburg with Mark Kremer and Adam Szymczyk (2000). He teaches on the Exhibition Studies MRes course at Central Saint Martins, at Jan van Eyck Academie. Maastricht and at the Dutch Art Institute, Arnhem. From 2000-2004 he was director of Rooseum, Malmö, Sweden and before that worked at protoacademy, Edinburgh and Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland.
He is a board member of Sonsbeek International and chair of CASCO, Utrecht, NL. In 2012 he was awarded the Princess Margriet Award for Cultural Change by the European Cultural Foundation, Brussels, in 2013 the Minumum Prize by the Pistoletto Foundation and in 2014 the Audrey Irmas CCS Bard College Prize for Curatorial Excellence.edit
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"Intelligence" suggests both covert information gathering and the faculty used to process information into something new. Many contemporary artists might be seen as intelligence agents at large in society, gathering, sifting,... more
"Intelligence" suggests both covert information gathering and the faculty used to process information into something new. Many contemporary artists might be seen as intelligence agents at large in society, gathering, sifting, and transforming the raw data of our lives, critically examining our environment, the way we live and our social relationships. This book brings together the work of 22 artists who share such an approach, including Susan Hiller, Gillian Wearing, and Douglas Gordon.An introductory essay highlights the choice of works, and the book includes an illustrated text on each artist. Lively contributions by Ralph Rugoff and Charlie Gere explore further the fundamental importance of intelligence today, not only in the art world but in daily life.Intelligence records the first in a series of exhibitions of New British Art to be held every three years at Tare Britain. The intention of the series is to provide a bold and dynamic interpretation of current work.
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Art Forum presented by Charles Esche. An Art Forum special lecture, part of the 10th Biennale of Sydney Outreach Program Summary: Charles Esche, director of the Tramway Gallery in Glasgow, speaks about the Gallery and some recent... more
Art Forum presented by Charles Esche. An Art Forum special lecture, part of the 10th Biennale of Sydney Outreach Program Summary: Charles Esche, director of the Tramway Gallery in Glasgow, speaks about the Gallery and some recent exhibitions held there
Research Interests: History, Art History, Art, Visual Arts, University, and 14 moreExhibition, Sydney, Program, Glasgow, Tasmania, Forum, Gallery, Art Gallery, Outreach, Of, Biennale, Charles, Tramway, and University of Tasmania
Het Van Abbemuseum en het Radboudumc zijn op zoek naar een nieuwe positie in de samenleving. Ziekenhuis en museum zijn instellingen met een krachtige, specialistische benadering van ofwel het menselijk lichaam ofwel kunst. Beide... more
Het Van Abbemuseum en het Radboudumc zijn op zoek naar een nieuwe positie in de samenleving. Ziekenhuis en museum zijn instellingen met een krachtige, specialistische benadering van ofwel het menselijk lichaam ofwel kunst. Beide instellingen richten zich op een norm. Voor het ziekenhuis is dat een ‘normale’ situatie van het gezonde lichaam en voor het museum is dat ‘canonieke’ kunst. Dit hoofdstuk gaat in op de boeiende weg die gezamenlijk is ingeslagen.
Research Interests: Humanities and Art
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Lily van der Stokker (b.1954) is a Dutch artist based in Amsterdam and New York. Her bold, colourful works most often take the form of large-scale decorative wall drawings and deal, in a disarmingly unashamed and exuberant way, with ideas... more
Lily van der Stokker (b.1954) is a Dutch artist based in Amsterdam and New York. Her bold, colourful works most often take the form of large-scale decorative wall drawings and deal, in a disarmingly unashamed and exuberant way, with ideas of beauty, love, relationships, family and the everyday. Playing on stereotypical femininity, she has developed a style she calls 'nonshouting feminism' through which to explore ideas often thought of as 'forbidden' in contemporary art - the decorative, the sentimental and the 'nice.' This fully illustrated book accompanies the largest exhibition of her work to date in the UK.
"To the Margin and Back" was the first international museum solo show of the Polish artist Andrzej Wróblewski (1927-1957) that features a selection of sixty-seven works including paintings, gouaches, monotypes and... more
"To the Margin and Back" was the first international museum solo show of the Polish artist Andrzej Wróblewski (1927-1957) that features a selection of sixty-seven works including paintings, gouaches, monotypes and woodcuts. Wróblewski’s oeuvre is an intriguing example of a struggle waged by an individual within the rapidly-developing political regime in post-World War II Eastern Europe. Beginning with an early involvement in the Polish avant-garde movement marked by his participation in the much-discussed "1st Exhibition of Modern Art." in Krakow (1948), he created a series of canvases that provide an acute observation of the war-time trauma ("Executions", 1949). Many of his works convey the sense of disorder, social alienation and failed expectations concerning the role of art in the new reality. The exhibition retraces this narrative, at the same time highlighting the artist’s lifelong interest in human nature, its masks and social codes – all issues that pushed him to constantly negotiate his own position. Spread between the extremes of two artistic idioms, and bound by personal tension, "To the Margin and Back" is itself a journey that creates new challenges to the existent readings of Andrzej Wróblewski and proposes new vistas for international audiences. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, which – for the first time – discloses the history of Wróblewski to an international public. The volume includes two critical texts addressing his artistic practice written by art historians Andrzej Kostołowski (in 1968) and Joanna Kordjak, a historical statement by the artist and photographer Zbigniew Dłubak. An essential part of the book offers a comprehensive selection of the artist’s writings (most of which were published in Polish as press articles, ranging from critiques aimed at the system of fine art academies to comments and remarks on exhibitions), as well as private notes, short texts, film scripts and letters. ISBN 978-94-9075-701-4 format: 27×20 cm hard cover 168 pages, colour publisher: Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
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Launching Afterall's Exhibition Histories series, this book offers critical reappraisal of two shows that each responded to the 'new art' of the 1960s in West Europe and North America, including Arte Povera, Anti-Form,... more
Launching Afterall's Exhibition Histories series, this book offers critical reappraisal of two shows that each responded to the 'new art' of the 1960s in West Europe and North America, including Arte Povera, Anti-Form, Conceptual and Land art. The famous exhibition 'When Attitudes Become Form' (Kunsthalle Bern) is analysed in relation to the paired and overlapping show, 'Op Losse Schroeven' (Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam), with attention paid to the respective curatorial strategies and institutional frames. Edited by Lucy Steeds, her Afterall colleagues and the Exhibition Histories Series Editors, this book brings together newly commissioned essays (by Christian Rattemeyer, Claudia Di Lecce and Steven ten Thije) and key texts from the time (by Wim Beeren, Charles Harrison, Harald Szeemann and Tommaso Trini), with extensive photographs and floor plans. Lucy contributes interviews with Jan Dibbets and Richard Serra, alongside those with Piero Gilardi, by Fran...
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The relationship of art and artists with social and political change is not only a highly topical area of current debate; it is also fundamental to the history of modern art. For the first time this volume gathers together the essential... more
The relationship of art and artists with social and political change is not only a highly topical area of current debate; it is also fundamental to the history of modern art. For the first time this volume gathers together the essential texts that have defined this area since the late nineteenth century through to today, filling a clear gap in the available literature. Using primary sources, case studies and new commissions, "Art and Social Change" provides an overview of the historical development of artists' engagement with ideas of social and political change, from utopian imaginings to active engagement. Incorporating artists' writings and public statements, as well as critical and theoretical texts, the volume also highlights developments outside established Western art history. Clearly structured within a chronological sequence of key dates, the volume includes critical commentaries from each period, together with contextual essays by art historians and theor...
Europeans live their lives at a time when certain collective expectations of how the world should function no longer seem to describe their experience of what actually happens. This bifurcation of experience and expectation is causing... more
Europeans live their lives at a time when certain collective expectations of how the world should function no longer seem to describe their experience of what actually happens. This bifurcation of experience and expectation is causing some severe symptoms of dislocation. Truth turns relative and his- tory seems in need of radical revision. Even time itself seems topsy-turvy, in a way that some Messianic beliefs find very much to their taste. This is the hallmark of the contemporary moment and why, this essay will argue, that in lieu of any other generalising term, we need to make the most use of ‘contemporary’ and ‘contemporaneity’ for emancipatory purposes.
The article sets out the origins and objectives of the project from the point of view of the Van Abbemuseum. It describes an institution dedicated to re-examining its modernist archive in the light of 21st century globalisation and how... more
The article sets out the origins and objectives of the project from the point of view of the Van Abbemuseum. It describes an institution dedicated to re-examining its modernist archive in the light of 21st century globalisation and how this project not only shifts possibilities within Palestine but alters the meaning and significance of the Picasso painting Buste de Femme when returned to Eindhoven. Having been painted in 1943 under one occupation, it’s brief visit to another occupation re-politicises its genesis while its relative anonymity in a provincial Dutch collection emphasises the differentials in cultural access between the Netherlands and Palestine.
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As part of the preview for the third edition of PILOT: during the opening week of the Venice Biennale, we are pleased to announce that we will be hosting a panel discussion in collaboration with PoCA, the Political Currency of Art... more
As part of the preview for the third edition of PILOT: during the opening week of the Venice Biennale, we are pleased to announce that we will be hosting a panel discussion in collaboration with PoCA, the Political Currency of Art research group. The discussion will focus on the ...
Here is another text that struggles with the demodern and was written for a book on BikvanderPol's School of Missing Studies.
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The business model is a gradually maturing concept in management science becoming distinct from strategy and business plans through its focus on the dynamics of value. Perhaps like at no other time, organizations are confronting powerful... more
The business model is a gradually maturing concept in management science becoming distinct from strategy and business plans through its focus on the dynamics of value. Perhaps like at no other time, organizations are confronting powerful drivers for Business Model Innovation (BMI) and amongst the most demanding of these are the sustainability agenda and the influence of digital technologies. While an extensive theoretical and conceptual literature on BMI exists, empirical studies either at scale or richly descriptive have been less common, particularly regarding the processes of designing novel business models in changing and volatile environments. We address this gap by reporting an in-depth case study of BMI in the publicly-funded cultural and creative sector, specifically the van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven. In doing so, the case directly addresses a number of research questions highlighted in a recent special issue of R&D Management: including, ‘How can firms ideally create support...
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Catalogue text for Wiels, Brussels exhibition on "The Absent Museum". The show looked at the absence of a functioning museum of modern and contemporary art in Brussels and asked three museum directors to describe their approach to the... more
Catalogue text for Wiels, Brussels exhibition on "The Absent Museum". The show looked at the absence of a functioning museum of modern and contemporary art in Brussels and asked three museum directors to describe their approach to the museum. I took the opportunity to write about recent Van Abbemuseum activities and make some comments about the Belgian situation.
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What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? Why hasn’t the West simply become “former,” as has its supposed counterpart, the “former East”? In this book, artists, thinkers, and activists explore the repercussions of the... more
What has become of the so-called West after the Cold War? Why hasn’t the West simply become “former,” as has its supposed counterpart, the “former East”? In this book, artists, thinkers, and activists explore the repercussions of the political, cultural, and economic events of 1989 on both art and the contemporary. The culmination of an eight-year curatorial research experiment, Former West imagines a world beyond our immediate condition.
The writings, visual essays, and conversations in Former West—more than seventy diverse contributions with global scope—unfold a tangled cartography far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of East vs. West. In fact, the Cold War was a contest not between two ideological blocs but between two variants of Western modernity. It is this conceptual “Westcentrism” that a “formering” of the West seeks to undo.
The contributions revisit contemporary debates through the lens of a “former West.” They rethink conceptions of time and space dominating the legacy of the 1989–1990 revolutions in the former East, and critique historical periodization of the contemporary. The contributors map the political economy and social relations of the contemporary, consider the implications of algorithmic cultures and the posthuman condition, and discuss notions of solidarity—the difficulty in constructing a new “we” despite migration, the refugee crisis, and the global class recomposition. Can art institute the contemporary it envisions, and live as if it were possible?
Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 is edited by curator Maria Hlavajova and writer and curator Simon Sheikh. Visual introductions to book chapters are curated by Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg.
Contributors include: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, and Eyal Weizman.
Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | Design by Mevis & Van Deursen, Amsterdam | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836
The writings, visual essays, and conversations in Former West—more than seventy diverse contributions with global scope—unfold a tangled cartography far more complex than the simplistic dichotomy of East vs. West. In fact, the Cold War was a contest not between two ideological blocs but between two variants of Western modernity. It is this conceptual “Westcentrism” that a “formering” of the West seeks to undo.
The contributions revisit contemporary debates through the lens of a “former West.” They rethink conceptions of time and space dominating the legacy of the 1989–1990 revolutions in the former East, and critique historical periodization of the contemporary. The contributors map the political economy and social relations of the contemporary, consider the implications of algorithmic cultures and the posthuman condition, and discuss notions of solidarity—the difficulty in constructing a new “we” despite migration, the refugee crisis, and the global class recomposition. Can art institute the contemporary it envisions, and live as if it were possible?
Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989 is edited by curator Maria Hlavajova and writer and curator Simon Sheikh. Visual introductions to book chapters are curated by Maria Hlavajova and Kathrin Rhomberg.
Contributors include: Nancy Adajania, Edit András, Athena Athanasiou, Zygmunt Bauman, Dave Beech, Brett Bloom, Rosi Braidotti, Susan Buck-Morss, Campus in Camps, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chto Delat?/What is to be done?, Jodi Dean, Angela Dimitrakaki, Dilar Dirik, Marlene Dumas, Keller Easterling, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Silvia Federici, Mark Fisher, Federica Giardini and Anna Simone, Boris Groys, Gulf Labor Coalition, Stefano Harney, Sharon Hayes, Brian Holmes, Tung-Hui Hu, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Sami Khatib, Delaine Le Bas, Boaz Levin and Vera Tollmann, Isabell Lorey, Sven Lütticken, Ewa Majewska, Artemy Magun, Suhail Malik, Teresa Margolles, Achille Mbembe, Laura McLean, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Aernout Mik, Angela Mitropoulos, Rastko Močnik, Nástio Mosquito, Rabih Mroué, Pedro Neves Marques, Peter Osborne, Matteo Pasquinelli, Andrea Phillips, Nina Power, Vijay Prashad, Gerald Raunig, Irit Rogoff, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Naoki Sakai, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini, Christoph Schlingensief, Georg Schöllhammer, Susan Schuppli, Andreas Siekmann, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Paulo Tavares, Trịnh T. Minh-Hà, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Marina Vishmidt, Marion von Osten, McKenzie Wark, and Eyal Weizman.
Published by BAK, basis actuele kunst and MIT Press, 2016 | Design by Mevis & Van Deursen, Amsterdam | English language | 748 pages | Paperback | ISBN: 9780262533836
It doesn’t always have to be beautiful, unless it’s beautiful. Muslim Mulliqi Prize International Exhibition 2012 / 9th Edition. National Gallery of Kosovo. The exhibition features 29 artists. Which were elected from a local open call... more
It doesn’t always have to be beautiful, unless it’s beautiful. Muslim Mulliqi Prize International Exhibition 2012 / 9th Edition. National Gallery of Kosovo. The exhibition features 29 artists. Which were elected from a local open call and invited international artists. The concept of the exhibition began with the idea of how to reinterpret the idea of beauty using today’s social and aesthetic forms.
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Catalogue essay about the collection and presentations of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven since I became director in 2004. It was written for Wiels, Brussels and published in a book accompanying the exhibition "The Absent Museum" that... more
Catalogue essay about the collection and presentations of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven since I became director in 2004. It was written for Wiels, Brussels and published in a book accompanying the exhibition "The Absent Museum" that looked at the absence of a functioning museum of modern and contemporary art in Belgium - hence the brief comments on the Belgian situation at the beginning and end.
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On the occasion of the 20-year anniversary of the /ecm Master Program in Exhibition Theory and Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna Thursday, May 5, 2022, 10am–9pm The museum is dead. Long live the museum. This, or something... more
On the occasion of the 20-year anniversary of the /ecm Master Program in
Exhibition Theory and Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Thursday, May 5, 2022, 10am–9pm
The museum is dead. Long live the museum. This, or something similar, could be the brief summary of numerous conferences, debates, and publications in the field of curating and museum studies over the past 20 years. The critique of the museum has been widely discussed. We have heard a lot about crisis and departure, we have heard about “tired museums” and the “end of the museum,” only to debate in that same breath untapped possibilities for thinking about the museum in new and different ways – as a space of assembly and as a contact zone, as a place of criticism, polyphony, and negotiation. Something seems to be on the move, and so it is not surprising that talk of the “museum of the future” is booming. Claims of diversification, digitalization, and democratization have become ubiquitous, while at the same time institutions are more than ever focused on privatization, economization, competition, and precarization. How can we as critical curators and museologists think and
act within these contradictions? And how can critical theory become
critical practice?
Exhibition Theory and Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Thursday, May 5, 2022, 10am–9pm
The museum is dead. Long live the museum. This, or something similar, could be the brief summary of numerous conferences, debates, and publications in the field of curating and museum studies over the past 20 years. The critique of the museum has been widely discussed. We have heard a lot about crisis and departure, we have heard about “tired museums” and the “end of the museum,” only to debate in that same breath untapped possibilities for thinking about the museum in new and different ways – as a space of assembly and as a contact zone, as a place of criticism, polyphony, and negotiation. Something seems to be on the move, and so it is not surprising that talk of the “museum of the future” is booming. Claims of diversification, digitalization, and democratization have become ubiquitous, while at the same time institutions are more than ever focused on privatization, economization, competition, and precarization. How can we as critical curators and museologists think and
act within these contradictions? And how can critical theory become
critical practice?