Sofia Meeting with Professionals Blog Post:

Meeting with Professionals, Part Two

Part two of our meetings with the professionals at the EYE entailed numerous topics, from the general policy or goal of the museum to the visual and technical practicalities involved when creating the exhibitions. Jaap Guldemond and Claartje Opdam along with guidance from Ivo, were involved in the discussion, which focused on questions that we as a class created.

The discussion started with Jaap providing an overview of as an institution, what the EYE strives to envision in their exhibitions. He discussed his personal experience and connection with the visual arts and the change that the ability to rent a film locally had on the film industry. He discussed how he was brought on to the project and how he decided on the program and policy that the EYE still uses today. The goal was to bring the moving image into the museum setting in an experimental, ever evolving and artistic way. The EYE has four different exhibitions every year, focusing on a different element in each and this format was not so common for a film museum. We also discussed that when choosing exhibition subjects, Jaap decides on an artist/director and he then pursues them.

The discussion then focused more on the Tarkovsky and Alys exhibitions. We discussed the involvement of the artist, director or the holder of the works, which Jaap feels if this person is alive and willing to cooperate, it is very important to include and collaborate with them. He spoke briefly about the involvement or Tarkovsky’s son, Andrei, and his role in the exhibition. While his son gave Jaap creative liberty in creating the exhibition, Jaap still wanted the son to approve of and understand the curatorial and design choices he made. As an archivist and protector of his father’s legacy, Andrei was very cooperative and provided many archival documents to the exhibition. We also discussed this cooperation in terms of the Alÿs exhibition. Alÿs had seen his works in other museums and did not like the presentation, so that was something that he trusted the EYE to do properly. Jaap brought up that although Alÿs is a multimedia artist and that he wanted to include these other works in the exhibition as they usually are, Alÿs did not want these works included. Alÿs felt it was important to show Children’s Games alone as it had never been presented like this before.

This leads to the next topic, which is the idea of preparation objects versus the finished product. When are we allowed to see the artistic process and when is that a secret? Claartje brought up an interesting point that in a Hollywood film, we as viewers do not demand a story board on screen as it does not suit the medium, whereas in an exhibition, viewers are often asking for preparatory works. In the eyes of the artists, these preparations are for their eyes only and perhaps one day when they have passed, these preparatory drawings will be released.   

Next, I will focus on some visual elements. Something that I really treasured was when Jaap explained why he had diptych and triptych screens in the Tarkovsky exhibition. In his opinion Tarkovsky differs from a Hollywood director in narrative. He feels that Tarkovsky trusts the visual image more than the narrative and that when watching his films, the narrative that each person takes away from it is subjective. Because of this, Jaap used diptych and triptych screens to present different narratives within each film at one time, spurring the museum visitor to always take away something different.  The Alÿs exhibition also had a deliberate design choice and that was the closing of one of the exits. For the Alÿs exhibition, the curators and Alÿs wanted the feeling of wondering around and exploration. There was the question of how to force the viewer to stay longer, view works more than once and perhaps even view from more than one angle. They felt that the open format, placement of the screens and deliberate exit/entrance was the way to achieve this.

Lastly, we discussed the audience of the EYE, studies that they do and their publications. For the type of audience that the museum gears itself towards, it seems that they do not have one. Jaap mentioned that it is not to draw visitors that know everything about that particular artist or director, but rather to trigger conversation and inspiration. When discussing the visitors that go to the EYE, I found it very interesting that it is (1) not the “big names” that necessarily draw the most crowds; for example Scorsese and (2) their percentage of tourists is way less than the Van Gogh Museum; 30% versus 90%. Also, I found it shocking that a publication or museum catalogue is not something that they always can accomplish because of budget issues, as I always thought that this is something that is always included.    

Written by Sofia