Be(com)ing Dutch is a large project developed over two years both inside and outside the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Consisting of debates, reading groups, artist's projects, exhibitions, and residencies, it interrogated various forms of collective participation and production. As questions of cultural identity and normative “national” values become ever more of an issue in political and cultural debate, Be(com)ing Dutch asks whether art can offer alternative examples of thinking about how we can live together today.

Like the Be(com)ing Dutch exhibition in Eindhoven, “Museum as Hub: Be(com)ing Dutch at a Distance” at the New Museum is guided by three broad directional themes: Imagined Past, Imagined Present, and Imagined Future. Michael Blum’s installation Exodus 2048 transforms the Museum as Hub space for the duration of the exhibition, representing an Imagined Future where the museum itself serves as a fictional camp for Israeli refugees. The Imagined Present is represented in Lidwien van de Ven’s Freedom of Expression, originally an installation at the Van Abbemuseum and re-created here as a poster in the Museum as Hub newspaper and a special presentation and screening organized by the artist to consider the issues of Islamaphobia, new right-wing thinking in Europe, and the politics of citizenship and immigration. Finally, screenings of Johan van der Keuken’s film I love $ in the New Museum theater reference the Imagined Past: the film shows an almost prophetic and still-topical treatment of global capitalism.

The exhibition and the entire Be(com)ing Dutch two-year project concludes with the project’s book launch and closing reception on March 27.
For more information about Be(com)ing Dutch, please visit becomingdutch.com.

Organized by Charles Esche, Director, and Annie Fletcher, Exhibitions Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

A partnership of five international arts organizations, Museum as Hub is a new model for curatorial practice and institutional collaboration established to enhance our understanding of contemporary art. Both a network of relationships and an actual physical site located in the New Museum Education Center, Museum as Hub is conceived as a flexible, social space designed to engage audiences through multimedia workstations, exhibition areas, screenings, symposia, and events. Initiated by the New Museum in 2006, the partnership includes Insa Art Space (Seoul, South Korea); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, Mexico); Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art (Cairo, Egypt); and Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, the Netherlands).