Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, the art storage facility next to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, just opened up for the public! The depot offers a wholly new way of experiencing art and is the first institution of its kind. Visitors can access 151000 artworks and gain insight into the inner workings of conservation.
©Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen
Most museum exhibitions showcase a fraction of their holdings, with the vast majority either in storage or conservation and inaccessible to the public. The display and exhibitions are curated with a specific narrative in mind that evidently cannot host the entirety of a collection.
The depot offers a unique chance to access a complete collection, available outside of the restraints of temporary exhibitions and experience the museum as a whole and the processes behind the scenes.Furthermore, researchers can now efficiently expand their work without the restraints of appointments and special access through the museum.
©Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen
Currently, only 8% of the museum’s collection was on display, at the depot all objects are available organised according to the climate requirement by art movent or period from 1200 to present day. While there are no exhibitions, the depot offers guided tours to learn stories about the collection, the building architecture and enter the storage compartments.
Our take
Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen is surely an exciting place to visit and the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility! Meaning that, hopefully, more institutions could follow their example and create or open up their storage for the public. Moreover, this initiative changes the way we interpret a museum or exhibition visit and poses the question of what is curation and storytelling to museum professionals and visitors. The possibilities are endless! We, at Local Approach, envision more open storage facilities for art and heritage will spring up by the major institutions or even see collectives of smaller museums joining their holdings in similar contexts!
©Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen
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Depot: a new way of visiting museums?
