Museum De Lakenhal is pleased to present the major exhibition Lucas van Leyden and the Renaissance, in cooperation with the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. For the first time ever, the most prominent Renaissance artist of the Northern Netherlands will be showcased against the background of his contemporaries. The 250-plus top quality works are on loan from Dutch and international museums, such as the Louvre, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum. Most of them will be on display in the Netherlands for the first time. This exhibition fits well into De Lakenhal’s policy to offer high-quality exhibitions of national or international significance based on sources from Leiden.

The whizzkids of the Rotterdam initiative Rnul Interactive became fascinated by the collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century magic lanterns. They created a contemporary, interactive installation in the cabinets of the museum inspired by the ‘Laterna Magica’. Visitors influence the projected historical images directly with their own movements. This spellbinding effect gives these historical artefacts a whole new, current dimension.

From the 15th of October until the 9th of January Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden presents a modest exhibition titled ‘Sharp letters, 40 years form of NRC Handelsblad’, about the history of the newspaper, from the first printed copy to nrc Next and today’s e-paper.

At the request of director Meta Knol Roy Villevoye places his sculpture ‘Preparations’(2009) in the court of honour which has been dedicated to fifteenth and sixteenth century paintings since 1890. The contemporary sculpture of a black man holding a wooden crucifix shines an entirely different light on the religious, late-medieval paintings of Lucas van Leyden and Cornelis Engebrechtsz. Roy Villevoye combines the sculpture on display with a collection of Asmat ancestor skulls from Papua New-Guinea, from the collections of the Worldmuseum and the Museum for Ethnology. Prof. Dr. Henk van Os wrote two exhibition texts for this display, you can read below.

De man met het kruis
Schedels voor het Laatste Oordeel

This year De Lakenhal invites contemporary artists to reflect on the collection of the museum, as part of the project Work in Progress. Sound artists and radio presenters Catherine van Campen and Bente Hamel kick off with their audio tour ‘To keep/ Om te houden’.

 Also in English.

Visual artist Ni Haifeng has always been interested in the collection of Chinese pottery in De Lakenhal. Now he has made the installation ‘Twisted Doubles’ in the Singelzaal of the museum. The installation mirrors the historical Lakenhal collection, mostly brought from overseas by the East Indian trading company VOC, in contemporary mass-produced pottery. Haifeng went shopping in a Chinese department store in Amsterdam and confronts these shopping goods with their valuable, historical predecessors in the museum. The presentation comes with a series of photographs showing the production and transport of Chinese pottery now and then.

In Scheltema the work of the three finalists for the Hermine van Bers Beeldende Kunstprijs is presented (a privately-owned initiative of the foundation that goes by the same name). A professional jury has chosen three nominees: Irene Cecile, Thomas Raat and Izaak Zwartjes.

Visual artist and ‘unusual cartographer’ Jan Rothuizen leisurely strolled through the museum the past few months, looking at all sorts of objects, searching in the depot and leafing through the photo archive. He selected four special objects and formulated poetic phrases about the function of the museum (‘A free translation of yesterday’). He used his personal perceptions to make six monumental silkscreen prints, now on sale in the museum shop.

On the top floor of the museum you find the historical section which was recently refurbished in its entirety. The ‘Galerij van Leidens’ gives an impression of the first museum furnishings in the history of De Lakenhal. In 1869 city architect J. W. Schaap was appointed to make this ‘pavillion’ on the second floor suitable as ‘museum of urban antiquities’. He made the stairwell leading to here. In it he placed sixteenth century windows from de ‘Schutterdoelen’. On the 27th of April 1874 the rebuilding was complete.

In 1968 during building works on the Herensingel a cane basket resurfaced with 46 tin plates, saucers and a jug. This was the first time such a large quantity of matching tin from the period 1525-1575 was found! This treasure from Leiden soil is on display in the museum from the 3th of August.

Every Tuesday afternoon, during the Street consultation, the director, curators and registrars focus their attention on the ‘weekly harvest’; the objects on the conveyor belt that week. At the conveyor belt they inspect and discuss each individual object, its history of acquisition, its context and value for the museum. Sound artist Catherine van Campen made a compilation of these discussions. The result is a look behind the scenes, a glimpse of internal discussion and research of the collection. (length: 11 minutes)

This famous tapestry depicts all the events of the Relief of Leiden. The unique animation film gives the tapestry a new dimension by transforming it into a digital, historically and geographically accurate map.

Utopisch Nest is the adventurous collaboration between Museum De Lakenhal, music theater ensemble De Veenfabriek and breeding ground the Scheltema Complex. For Museum De Lakenhal it is an important instrument to cultivate vision and develop renewal within the museum. Every year 3 to 4 small-scale interdisciplinary projects with an experimental character are developed. From the 11^th of July the results of the project In far-off days, about the 100-year old cemetery Rhijnhof, are shown in the Scheltema Complex.

Museum De Lakenhal purchased the last big painting of Jan Wolkers, which he called ‘the big yellow canvas’. Wolkers finished this painting shortly before his death in 2007. He considered it the apotheosis of his work as a visual artist.

Listen to a short interview with Meta Knol at the Radio 1 News.

http://nos.nl/audio/160652-museumdirecteur-de-lakenhal-over-doek-wolkers.html

The museum depot contains hundreds of finds excavated by archaeologists in Leiden. They give us much information about the daily life in the city since the Middle Ages. Many of these objects will be returned to the Province Zuid-Holland, the official owner. They will get a place in the archaeological depot of the province in Alphen aan de Rijn. Only donations and purchases from before the first Monuments Act of 1966 are lawfully permitted to stay in the museum.

The other half was written by less well-known, but interesting masters. But there is nobody who ever performs these works or is even interested. Three-hundred-and-twenty sonatas! Unthinkable, unbelievable. Still, this is exactly the case with the six choirbooks of the Pieterskerk of Leiden. These enormous books (weighing over 10 kilograms each!) were compiled in the sixteenth century for the College of the Canonical Hours of the church. Together, they form Europe’s biggest original collection religious, polyphone (many-voiced) music. The books are on display in one room from the 18^th of April until the 30^th of May in De Lakenhal.

The famous Egidius quartet revives the beautiful pieces of music from these books with live performances, for example on the 30^th of May in the Pieterskerk. Read more on www.leidsekoorboeken.nl.

In close cooperation with Tate Modern in London, Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden presents a major exhibition on Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), and this artist’s influence on the international avant-garde. Energetically and enthusiastically, Van Doesburg broke new ground as the initiator, ambassador, promoter and organiser of the new art. The 300-plus works by some 80 artists – among whom El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Gino Severini, Kurt Schwitters, Hans and Sophie Arp, Hans Richter, Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár and Alexander Archipenko – are on loan from museums from around the world. Many of these works have never been on display before in the Netherlands.

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