ON NOW
Started in July 2019
The Operation Night Watch Team. Photograph by Jan-Kees SteenmanOperation Night Watch started on 8 July 2019 – it’s the biggest and most wide-ranging study and restoration project in the history of Rembrandt’s masterpiece. Operation Night Watch aims to ensure the painting is conserved in the best possible way for future generations. It will be carried out in a specially designed glass chamber, allowing the visiting public to watch.
AkzoNobel is the main partner of Operation Night Watch.
Operation Night Watch is made possible by The Bennink Foundation, PACCAR Foundation, Piet van der Slikke & Sandra Swelheim, American Express Foundation, Familie De Rooij, Het AutoBinck Fonds, Segula Technologies, Dina & Kjell Johnsen, Familie D. Ermia, Familie M. van Poecke, Henry M. Holterman Fonds, Irma Theodora Fonds, Luca Fonds, Piek-den Hartog Fonds, Stichting Zabawas, Cevat Fonds, Johanna Kast-Michel Fonds, Marjorie & Jeffrey A. Rosen, Stichting Thurkowfonds and the Nachtwacht Fonds
Every year more than two million people visit the Rijksmuseum and The Night Watch, thanks to the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the City of Amsterdam, Founder Philips and main sponsors ING, BankGiro Lottery and KPN
runs till 15 september 2019
Long Live Rembrandt. Photograph by Olivier MiddendorpHundreds of artists are paying tribute to the great master in the summer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum: from primary schoolchildren to established artists; from financial controllers to furniture makers. Among the artworks there are 96 versions of The Night Watch, 253 works by children, and 132 copies of Rembrandt’s self-portraits.
runs till 15 September
Erwin Olaf, Hope - Portrait 5, 2005. Acquired thanks to BankGiro Lottery playersThe Rijksmuseum has been a major source of inspiration for Erwin Olaf since his early youth, with Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Breitner and other Dutch artists being hugely influential on his work. To mark the transfer of Olaf’s core collection, the Rijksmuseum is staging the 12x Erwin Olaf exhibition, in which Olaf places his photographs in dialogue with Dutch painting. This is the first time that his work is being displayed alongside that of his great forebears.
The acquisition of the Erwin Olaf collection was made possible in part by BankGiro Lottery players.
runs till 3 November
Louise Bourgeois 'Spider' 1996, Easton Foundation. Photo: Antoine van Kaam © The Easton Foundation/Pictoright, AmsterdamFor the first time in the Netherlands, in the summer of 2019 the Rijksmuseum will bring together a selection of monumental outdoor sculptures by Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), the French-American artist who became world-famous for her gigantic sculptures of spiders. Visitors wandering around the Rijksmuseum Gardens will explore all the themes that characterise the artist’s work. The sculptures on display will span half a century: from The Blind Leading the Blind from 1947-1949 to the spectacular Spider, made in 1996.
The exhibition Louise Bourgeois in the Rijksmuseum Gardens has been made possible by Pon and the Rijksclub.
COMING SOON: AUTUMN 2019
Exhibitions
11 October 2019 to 19 January 2020
Francisco de Zurbarán, 1639. Real Academia Bellas Artes San FernandoRembrandt-Velázquez. Dutch and Spanish Masters brings to a close the Rijksmuseum’s 2019 Year of Rembrandt. This exhibition of the greatest works by Dutch and Spanish masters of the 17th century is the result of a unique partnership between Museo del Prado in Madrid and the Rijksmuseum. For the first time ever, it brings together masterpieces by Velázquez, Rembrandt, Murillo, Vermeer, Zurbarán, Hals and Ribera, in an exhibition about beauty, emotion, religion and realism.
The Rembrandt-Velázquez exhibition is made possible in part by Ammodo, Holland America Line, Rijksmuseum International Circle and the Ministry for Education, Culture and Science.
Rineke Dijkstra - Night Watching
5 September to 3 December 2019
Night Watching, Rineke DijkstraNight Watching is a new film installation by Rineke Dijkstra that will go on display in the Rijksmuseum’s Gallery of Honour from 5 September. Its subject is 14 groups of people looking at Rembrandt’s The Night Watch and responding to it in their own ways. To ensure they had the most powerful possible experience of the painting, Dijkstra shot Night Watching directly in front of The Night Watch in the Gallery of Honour, over the course of six evenings. The painting itself does not appear.
Night Watching is made possible in part by Joep and Monique Krouwels/Rijksmuseum Fund.
Document Nederland: ON/OFF
Martijn van de Griendt
3 October 2019 to 19 January 2020
Martijn van de Griendt, Quenisha Qiana (344.000 followers on Instagram)Nowadays, lots of people are permanently switched on: they’re constantly alert, available, active, beautiful and hyper-aware of the camera, their appearance, and their self-image. Others choose a different path and seek out places where they can switch off for a moment. For this year’s edition of the annual Document Nederland exhibition, the Rijksmuseum commissioned Martijn van de Griendt to photograph our consumer society – where everything revolves around looks and likes.
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS: 2020
Caravaggio x Bernini
Baroque in Rome
14 February to 7 June 2020
Japanese Lacquer
3 July to 30 August 2020
XXL Paper
3 July to 30 August 2020
25 September 2020 to 17 January 2021
