Van Abbe and De Stijl

In 1917 the Dutch artistic movement called De Stijl was founded, and therefore 2017 is declared as the national Mondriaan to Dutch Design theme year. In relation to this, the Van Abbemuseum organises four exhibitions and several activities, like guided tours, lectures, special Children’s Art Club sessions, and musical evenings. 

Van Abbe and De Stijl
Van Abbe and De Stijl starts with one of De Stijl’s top works in the Van Abbemuseum collection and finishes with contemporary design objects, which were selected by students from the Master for curatorial practise at the Design Academy Eindhoven (Yasmin Tri Aryani, Delany Boutkan, Max Calabria, Kirsten Geekie, Josh Plough).

Although the top work is not a work of art, but a model of the L’Aubette dancehall in Strasburg designed by Theo van Doesburg, it symbolises one of the main achievements of De Stijl. The movement realised a seamless fusion between painting and architecture. The model opens also the retrospective of Theo van Doesburg’s solo exhibition in the museum in 1968, for which a number of models of his architectural proposals were made. Van Abbe and De Stijl shows that the ideas of Van Doesburg and De Stijl overlap in the fields of literature, art, architecture and design. The conditions in which the objects were created are also highlighted with the help of sketches, letters, notes and photographs. Admittedly the individual work of art or object has a central place, but it never stands alone.

Curator: Diana Franssen.

100th anniversary De Stijl: three library exhibitions

In the library of the Van Abbe there will be three exhibitions related to the 100th anniversary of De Stijl.

100th anniversary De Stijl: Lissitzky and Oud in dialogue
April 25–July 28, 2017

During the period 1923 to 1928 an animated correspondence took place between the Russian artist El Lissitzky and the Dutch architect J.J.P. Oud. Their letters reflect the period and reveal the intense contact between artists, architects, designers and other disciplines during the turbulent period of the founding of the Bauhaus, De Stijl and Constructivism.

100th anniversary De Stijl: Playing with Letters
September 1–November 11, 2017

Under the pseudonym I.K. Bonset Theo van Doesburg published images in word and sound. There is a fine line between these and other experiments to the Concrete or Visual poetry appearing in the 50s and 60s. Here the timbre of the sound is less important than the visible play with words and sentences.

100th anniversary De Stijl: Echoes
November 21, 2017–February 10, 2018

A presentation of art works which either build on the developments of De Stijl, such as Richard Paul Lohse and Joost Baljeu, or create ironic caricatures of De Stijl, like  Surasi Kusolwong and Ian Hamilton Finlay.

Curators 100th anniversary De Stijl exhibitions: Diana Franssen and Willem Smit.

Theme year Mondriaan to Dutch Design
In 2017, it will be the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Dutch artistic movement called De Stijl (The Style) established in 1917. Over the past 25 years, the desire to modernise design and art that characterised De Stijl has been carried forward under the banner of Dutch Design. To celebrate the anniversary, NBTC Holland Marketing, together with its partners, has declared 2017 as the year from Mondriaan to Dutch Design.