Amsterdam's Hermitage Museum, once the largest satellite of the St. Petersburg institution, will be renamed the H'ART Museum after severing ties with Russia, it was announced on Monday. The Dutch museum, which previously relied on the Hermitage collection for its programming, has formed international partnerships with some of the world's leading institutions to exhibit its works in the Dutch capital.
The museum's new identity will come into force on September 1st. The Center Pompidou in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC will be the new partners of the H'ART Museum and plan major exhibitions in collaboration; the next three years are already underway.
The institution has already received support from corporations including lottery group VriendenLoterij, brewer Heineken and bank ABN AMRO to develop its new direction. The ELJA Foundation, a new philanthropic organization aimed at providing cultural opportunities to young people, will also provide funding to the museum.
“It’s an exciting new step for us, a contemporary and future-proof model,” Annabelle Birnie, the museum’s director, said in a statement. “We are building our experience on the international field and now we are spreading our wings. The programming will be multifaceted, reflecting the times in which we live. We will present large art exhibitions as well as intimate performances.”
The rebrand and repositioning comes more than a year after the Amsterdam museum severed ties with its parent museum in March 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Dutch institution said at the time that “a line has been crossed”.
Founded in 2009, the Hermitage Amsterdam was originally established as an independent non-profit organization, but had “unlimited rights” to loan works from St. Petersburg's historical collection. Cutting ties with Russia meant the future of the Amsterdam institution was in limbo, but that didn't last long.
Following the official launch of the new name and identity, H'ART Museum will be working to develop future programs with its new partner institutions, which may involve art loans as well as various types of collaborations with curators and artists. The museum signed separate contracts with each of the partner institutions, according to the New York Times.
Upcoming highlights include the “Kandinsky” exhibition, organized in partnership with the Center Pompidou, which is scheduled to travel to the Netherlands in mid-2024. It will be the first of five exhibitions shared between the two institutions over five years. The British Museum's “Feminine power” exhibition will also travel to H'ART in 2026. And a major exhibition is being planned in collaboration with the US-based Leiden Collection, in which all 17 Rembrandts from the private collection will be displayed together publicly for the first time. This exhibition will take place in 2025, to celebrate Amsterdam's 750th anniversary.
The video installation Clubbing (2012), by Martine Gutierrez, from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is already on display in the museum's redesigned space. A full schedule of exhibitions and programs will be announced later this year.
Source: Artnet News