XL Art: Large-Format Works Since the 1950s

XL Art: Large-Format Works Since the 1950s
10.02.2018 - 29.04.2018

From 10 February to 29 April 2018, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is exhibiting fifty large-format artworks. Guest curator Carel Blotkamp has made a varied selection from the very largest works in the museum’s collection for the exhibition XL Art: Large-Format Works Since the 1950s.

Featured works include ‘Driftwood Circle’ by Richard Long, ‘Notung’ by Anselm Kiefer and ‘D'red Dwarf, B'lack Hole’ by Jim Shaw. Because of their enormous size, these works are rarely exhibited and could not be included in the current collections displays The Collection as Time Machine in the intimate galleries of the old museum building. By contrast, the Bodon wing offers ample space for these large artworks and will provide the backdrop from February 2018 for the XL exhibition.

Space
Paintings that take up an entire wall, sculptures and installations that fill whole galleries: today extremely large artworks are quite normal. But in in 1935, when Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen opened, such large artworks were rare and so the design of the building did not take them into account. In the 1970s, the museum constructed the Bodon wing to create more space for exhibitions and the growing collection. This space is perfect for the more than sixty large works XL Art.

The works in XL Art: Large-Format Works Since the 1950s are arranged more or less chronologically in keeping with the set-up of the post-war art in the display The Collection as Time Machine. Guest curator Carel Blotkamp: ‘In curating the collections displays, I sadly had to exclude certain works simply because they would not pass through the doors. The beautiful Rothko only just fitted. I am very pleased with this exhibition as a temporary supplement to the collections displays.’

The exhibition is on show from 10 February 2018 until 29 April 2018.