The Seventh Museum

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Date: 30 November 1993 – 30 November 1994
Location: various locations around the Hofvijver, The Hague

An imaginary museum, temporary in nature, without its own building or collection, presented works of contemporary art in ever-changing forms at different locations and times in the Hofvijver Museums and the area surrounding the Hofvijver. The starting point was to explore the notion of publicness in relation to the museum collection, the museum as an institution, and the public space around the museums. The working group members Waling Boers and Jan Gehlen were responsible for the selection.

Projects by:

Philip Akkerman
Self-portraits among the Old Masters
Mauritshuis / Museum Bredius / Prince William V Gallery

Akkerman paints only self-portraits, through which he investigates not only the expressive and formal possibilities of the genre but also the technical and stylistic aspects of painting. For him, the tradition of Western painting serves both as a source of inspiration and as a frame of reference. Three of his self-portraits temporarily became part of the permanent collections of three historical museums around the Hofvijver, exhibited in their galleries among the Old Masters.

Erzsébeth Baerveldt
On loan: portrait of Erzsébet Bathory from the National Museum Budapest (1994) and the historically reconstructed costume by Baerveldt
The Hague Historical Museum, Prison Gate

Her fascination with the historical figure, the Hungarian countess Erzsébet Bathory, has led to a form of identification, through which she seeks to understand Bathory’s motives. The intensity with which Baerveldt appropriates the incomplete image history has left of the countess appeals directly to the imagination.

Marcel van Eeden
40 manipulated photographs from the topographical atlas of the Municipal Archive
The Hague Historical Museum

By subtly reworking, re-photographing, and creating a new reality from photographs of The Hague dating from his parents’ time, between 1930 and 1965, Van Eeden draws images from a few decades before his own birth closer to himself, in the hope of gaining a grip on time.

Renée Green
After the Ten Thousand Things
Catalog of Hague findings, Green collection

In her catalog, Green surveyed the urban landscape of The Hague through the eyes of a relative outsider. She was particularly intrigued by the curious blend of diverse lifestyles and cultural traditions.

Klaas Kloosterboer
One-day installation in the Golden Room of the Mauritshuis

Unpainted, prepared canvas spread out widely across a large trestle table in the most representative hall of the Mauritshuis became a critical statement by the artist about the museum as an institution. The openness and unpredictability of each painterly act was confronted with the silence of the museum’s unassailable aesthetics.

Rob van Koningsbruggen
Own work alongside 17th-century landscapes
Museum Bredius

Since childhood, Van Koningsbruggen has been familiar with the 17th-century landscape painters in The Hague’s collections. From the Museum Bredius collection he selected paintings and drawings by Nauwincx, Segers, Dubus, Van Goyen, Van Wieringen, Molijn, Bloemaert, and Van Ruisdael, presenting them in direct relation to his own abstract work. The confrontation focused especially on perception and the use of color.

Renée Kool
Cabinet theater with puppet shows
Lange Vijverberg

Kool installed a cabinet theater with puppet performances. At her invitation, various writers commented through the figures of Jan Klaassen and Katrijn on different aspects of The Hague’s society. At the same time, Kool’s cabinet theater examined art itself as a medium for taking a position and making statements.

With texts by Rob de Graaf, Ingrid Kuijpers & David Eeles, K. Michel, Karel Eijkman, Bilwet, Don Duyns, Stéphane Calais, Wim Kerkhove, Gerardjan Rijnders, and Renée Kool.

Aernout Mik
A publicly accessible construction trailer lined with pink rubber, fitted with sanitary facilities
Lange Voorhout

In the orderly historical setting of the Lange Voorhout, Mik placed a freely accessible construction trailer. The interior was lined with skin-colored rubber, from which also a basin was made, filled with broken crockery. Three functioning pink toilets stood inside, freely available for use by any visitor.

Liza Post
Untitled (6 photo works in 5 locations)
Mauritshuis, The Hague Historical Museum, Museum Bredius, Prison Gate, Prince William V Gallery

In the transitional spaces between inside and outside in the museums, Post installed her photo works. Images of actions and situations, staged with a disquieting explicitness down to the smallest detail, were released into their surroundings.

Joke Robaard
Seven different pamphlets (nos. 15–21 with the Hofvijver area as subject)

Robaard designed a series of pamphlets on the Hofvijver, complete with photography, text, and colophon. Published in various magazines, they created an interplay between the world of art and those of politics, film, urban planning, and nature conservation.

Georgina Starr
The Nine Collections of the Seventh Museum
CD-ROM with touchscreen, videos, booklets, installation in Café Schlemmer; posters displayed in various locations in Amsterdam and The Hague.

Within The Seventh Museum, she created her own imaginary museum, in which she made public her nine collections based on her moods during a two-week stay in a pension in The Hague. The installation she staged in this context was inspired by Willem van Haecht’s painting Apelles Painting Campaspe, which hangs in the Mauritshuis.

Roy Villevoye
Primary colors, skin color, political colors
Billboard on the Buitenhof

In line with his own practice, Roy Villevoye designed a billboard consisting of three horizontal bars: the colors of the political parties, the three primary printing colors, and finally a series of photographed backs of people of varying skin tones. In the center, the text: “primary colors, skin color, political colors.” Villevoye’s billboard dominated the Buitenhof throughout the entire election period in spring 1994.

Unrealized proposals by Christiaan Bastiaans, Corrie Bezems, Andrea Fraser/Clegg & Guttmann, and Marijke van Warmerdam.