The Stedelijk Museum has announced a major donation of 175 works from the collection of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, featuring pieces by Lawrence Weiner, Anselm Kiefer, and Jeff Wall, among many others.  “The Stedelijk is deeply honored to receive such a generous, essential and wonderful gift, says Beatrix Ruf, director of the Museum.  “We are extremely moved about their decision to make the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam their collection’s new home. It reflects their deep engagement with the city as well as the Stedelijk’s relationship and engagement with the history of artistic exchange between the US and Amsterdam.”

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The New York Times profiles a new effort underway in the Netherlands to encourage public arts patronage through a subscription-based service.  The program, titled We Are Public, offers low-price access to a range of cultural events, while promising to contribute â‚¬18,000 to local arts institutions.  “There’s a tendency on all levels of society that people want to take more control over what’s going on, and people are collectively funding stuff they think is important,” says co-founder Bas Morsch. (more…)

Fourteen monumental sculptures by Alexander Calder are going on view this summer at the Rijksmuseum’s outdoor gallery in Amsterdam.   The works will be on view during normal museum hours, and accompany an exhibition of works from the collection of the Calder Foundation and Musée National d’Art Moderne and Centre Pompidou, among others, (more…)

Recently appointed Stedelijk Museum director Beatrix Ruf is interviewed in The Art Newspaper this week, discussing her vision for the museum, her previous work at Kunsthalle Zurich, and what she thinks arts institutions should be focusing on in the 21st Century.  “The big general question for us all is how museums should be made to function,” she says. “We are all looking into the meanings of heritage and the interplay between the caretaking of heritage and how to develop collecting further.” (more…)

A recent investigation into the collection of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has uncovered 139 works looted during World War II.  The results of a 4-year study, the works have been placed on a website, inviting prior owners to make claims on the return of the work, including pieces by Matisse and Isaac Israels.  “We know that there were doubtful transactions concerning works acquired before 1940, after Kristallnacht,” said Siebe Weide of the Dutch Museum Association. (more…)

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has announced a new line of three-dimensional replicas of some of the artist’s most famous works.  Recreated down to the frame, the replicas are available for £22,000.  “This particular process has been developed with paintings in mind. The work of Van Gogh lends itself particularly well, since the pictures are so rich in surface structure. We have been working with them on the color quality and fine-tuning.”  Says Museum Director Axel Rüger. (more…)

A work by artist Jan Schoonhoven, stolen from the Bommel van Dam Museum in Venlo several months ago, has turned up at Sotheby’s, stopping the sale after a Dutch fence confessed to police that he had tried to sell the work.  The 1969 work had already achieved a sale price of â‚¬214,000, sold under a different name and turned 90 degrees in the catalog.  The auction house acknowledged that it had already been investigating the work after buyers became suspicious. (more…)

Artist Jan Mostaert’s painting Discovery of America, depicting a group of Spanish soldiers aiming cannons at an indigenous group of people, has been purchased by the Rijksmuseum.  Previously owned by Marei von Saher, the work had been taken from her father in law, dealer Jacques Goudstikker, by the Nazis during World War II, and was returned to von Saher in 2006.  “It’s a picture that a lot of people were interested in both in North and South America because of it being such an important historical picture,” said dealer Hugo Nathan, “but Mostaert is arguably the most important early Dutch painter, as opposed to being a Flemish master, and the Rijksmuseum was always hoping to secure it for the Dutch nation.” (more…)

In an effort to increase public engagement with their collections, a number of museums are now offering free, high-quality images of their works for download and open use. In one such example, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has begun allowing visitors to reproduce images of its collection anywhere.“We’re a public institution, and so the art and objects we have are, in a way, everyone’s property.” Says collections director Taco Dibbets. (more…)

New research into the composition and techniques in the work of Vincent Van Gogh are challenging the perceptions of the artist as a spontaneous, romantic libertine in favor of a portrait of the Dutchman as a skilled and relentlessly committed technician.  Presenting findings at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, a team of researchers have used new technologies and visualization equipment to analyze and uncover Van Gogh’s skillful approach to composing and arranging his paintings.  “There has never been such extensive research into Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings,” says Nienke Bakker, Van Gogh Museum curator. (more…)

With its 10-year, $500 million renovation now drawn to a close, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum is set to reopen on April 13th.  The new design, which undid years of renovations to restore the original design and layout by Pierre Cuypers, was well over both budget and timeframe, but has already received praise for its new design and attention to historical detail. “This was built as a national museum, not just an art museum, and we want the public to get a sense of history, seeing the paintings, furniture and applied arts that were all conceived around the same time.” Said Director of Collections, Taco Dibbits. (more…)

Nick van Woert, Microscope (2013), (Nick van Woert in Ted Kaczynski’s clothes), courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

Since his first solo exhibition at Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam in 2010, Brooklyn-based artist Nick van Woert has quickly risen through the ranks of the contemporary arts scene, creating a prolific and experimental body of work informed by his unique interests in history, architecture, environment, and philosophy.  From ancient Rome to the Unabomber, van Woert casts an eye on the past as a means of understanding the present and inquiring into the future. His work blends an emphasis on sculptural craft and process with the use of found objects and readymades, resting between aesthetic value and conceptual statement. While preparing for the opening of No Man’s Land, his first exhibition at OHWOW in Los Angeles, (open through April 6, 2013), the artist sat down to answer some questions for Art Observed.

Nick van Woert, No Man’s Land (2013), Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

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TEFAF is currently in talks with Sotheby’s and Beijing GeHua Group (China’s state-owned development company) over a new art fair in China.  “TEFAF Beijing 2014” would place a new edition of the world’s largest art and antiques fair  in the world’s second-largest art market.  “We feel now is the time to further develop our presence in China, one of the most important art markets,” said TEFAF Executive Ben Janssens. “Tefaf is committed to contributing to the further growth of the market for European art in China.” (more…)

Amsterdam art museums the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk are expected to reopen to the public in the coming months, after several years of renovations. The Rijksmuseum, which houses a large collection of “Golden Age” pieces by Dutch masters such as Rembrandt, has announced that it will be accessible again on April 13, 2013 following a closure of ten years. The Stedelijk, whose focus veers towards more modern and contemporary art, has been shut for eight years, and has set a re-opening date of September 23, 2012.

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 A 2.5 ton bronze bull by sculptor Arturo Di Modica, similar to the Wall Street Bull by the same artist,  has been positioned near the front of NYSE Euronext (NYX)’s Amsterdam “as an antidote to Europe’s debt crisis.” “Europe is in an economic crisis. Think positive! Together we will go up!” read leaflets that were handed out by a spokesman for Di Modica.

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