When filmmaker Sarah Vos began developing her documentary about the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, she only intended to chronicle her debut under new director Rein Wolfs. But over the next three years, during which Vos had access to every aspect of the museum’s operations, his cameras captured something far richer: the Stedelijk’s monumental and difficult effort to diversify its staff and collection. .
The resulting film, wonderfully titled White balls on the walls (after a sign during a Guerrilla Girls action), is that rare and incisive document from a centuries-old institution struggling and striving to confront a more inclusive era.
As we are told at the top of the documentary, male artists made up 96% of the Stedelijk’s collection, just as his workplace was overwhelmingly white. To begin to reduce this glaring imbalance, the museum allocated 50% of its acquisition budget to works by artists of color and began to diversify its hiring practices.
These are initiatives you might hear about in a glossy press ad. Reality, as we know, is the subject of endless Zoom meetings and discussions as Stedelijk staff hammer and agonize over the intricacies of inclusivity. What does the term “colour” mean? Should the word “prostitute” in the title of a work be replaced by “sex worker”? Will the hanging of works by black artists in a single room be interpreted as creating an “African zone”? What about Picasso’s problem?
That a museum, let alone one as rich and esteemed as the Stedelijk, allows a film crew to document their candid conversations and navigations around diversity is striking. But no, Wolfs told Artnet News, he wouldn’t call it brave.
“I think giving that access opens up the possibility of doing something about an exemplary situation, where the successes but also the failures of this whole process are shown,” he said. “In the end, it is a very authentic document; it becomes very human. And I think authenticity is the way you can learn.
Always from White balls on the walls. Courtesy of Icarus Films.
Or as Charl Landvruegd, the museum’s new head of research and curation, put it in the film: “It’s this pain that the white community is experiencing now that is part of the process that we should be exposing.”
There are also many other factors at play for the Stedelijk. In the foreground, his impulse to embrace diversity followed a directive from the town hall, on which the funding of the museum depends, creating a sense of urgency as much as an air of opportunism that hovers over the debates.
There is also the Stededlijk’s position as a guardian of Dutch modern and contemporary art history. What would it mean for the museum to rewrite the canon of art to correct historical exclusions? For starters, Wolfs is leading the removal of the towering sign on the museum’s facade that once read “Meet the Icons of Modern Art” – a “symbolic act” for the new director.
Curator Beatrice von Bormann in the Stedelijk depot. Always from White balls on the walls. Courtesy of Icarus Films.
The heaviest lifting is done in the bowels of the museum. Curator Beatrice von Bormann delves into the Stedelijk’s storage to resurface works by female artists such as Frieda Hunziker and Else Berg (some of which weren’t even listed in the museum’s database) for a rehang. Meanwhile, Landvruegd and the members of the research team engage in a tense but candid dialogue around the canon of Western art. “You have to recognize that this is ancient history,” said researcher Frank van Lemoen. “One wonders if inclusivity is not some kind of utopia.”
“The whole diversity process,” Wolfs explained to Artnet News with some understatement, “is a process in which there are so many pitfalls, internally but also externally.”
Indeed, these tensions are not only present within the Stedelijk (down to a security guard baffled by the new gender-neutral bathrooms), but radiate out to its audience. Towards the end of the film, the museum opens its “Kirchner and Noldeexhibition that ostensibly confronts the role of colonialism in the practices of the titular Expressionists – with scathing reviews from the press and visitors for its “exaggerated political correctness”.
Such comments could resonate with museums around the world as they embark on their own DEI efforts, and even more so at a time when the arts have become increasingly politicized and audiences polarized (look at you, florida). For what it’s worth, according to Wolfs, the “woke museum” label has followed the Stedelijk since filming wrapped.
The director of the Stedelijk Museum, Rein Wolfs. Always from White balls on the walls. Courtesy of Icarus Films.
White balls on the walls, with its no-fuss editing that creates uncomfortably long scenes, essentially argues that any push towards inclusivity remains a demanding and ongoing process. Even Wolfs himself acknowledges that the change for the Stedelijk, an institution with more than 100,000 works in its collection, will likely take decades.
“We will never achieve the perfect balance, as there will always be individuals and groups with their unique stories that need to be included to create a more accurate reflection of our society,” he admitted, and yet: “We’ve made huge strides in terms of being aware of our history and what we could do better in the future. Like most museums, we have a history of, say, systemic exclusion. We are aware now so we can make some changes.
And this progress is not only necessary, but also inevitable.
As Wolfs in the film rightly asked, “Should we be politically incorrect?” That can’t be an option, can it? That can’t be an option in this world, can it? »
‘White Balls on Walls’ screens at Cinema Forum209 W Houston St, New York, starting May 26.
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