Transhistoric exhibitions and collection-arrangements are an important theme at the Frans Hals Museum. Not only do we stage these kinds of presentations, we also consider the topic carefully. Together with M – Museum in Leuven, we initiated the international research project The Transhistorical Museum: Objects, Narratives and Temporalities in 2015. In this context, two conferences, a workshop and a lecture have already taken place. The first conference in 2015 was: A different conversation with the past: rethinking the collection in the transhistorical museum.

The recent merger of the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen Haarlem into one museum is partly inspired by the transhistoric project. Our visitors will therefore increasingly be surprised with combinations of old and new art, both at the Hof (Groot Heiligland) and at the Hal (Grote Markt) locations.

A different conversation with the past: rethinking the collection in the transhistorical museum

After introductions by Ann Demeester (director Frans Hals Museum) and Koen Brams (freelance researcher, writer and curator), the conference started with two keynote lectures by James Bradburne (Director General Pinacoteca di Brera and Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan) and John C. Welchman (Professor of art history and critical theory, University of California, chair of the Mike Kelley  Foundation for the Arts). Click here to see the lecture by Bradburne, and here to see the lecture by Welchman.

In the afternoon the following case studies took place::

Till-Holger Borchert (Director Bruges Museums) on recent projects in the Bruges Museums (view here)
Pablo Bronstein (Artist) about his exhibition project The Grand Tour (view here)
Bice Curiger (Artistic Director Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles) on how we can free art history from its conventions by looking back through the lens of contemporary artists (view here)
Catherine de Zegher (Director Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent) about the MSK in Ghent: a Museum without borders (view here)

At last, a roundtable discussion took place between Peter Carpreau (Curator-in-charge Old Masters, M-Museum), Taco Dibbits (Director Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes (Professor and Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art History, University of Amsterdam), Philippa van Loon (Chairman of Van Loon Foundation, Museum van Loon, Amsterdam) and Willem de Rooij (Artist), moderated by Ann Demeester. Click here to watch it back.