Hans Looijen, Amsterdam - MEET THE COLLECTOR Part Forty Seven
I have been reading about the work of this weeks collector for many years and only met him for the first time in person at the 2019 Outsider Art Fair in Paris. Hans Looijen is the Museum of the Mind’s Director in Amsterdam - which covers two spaces. Not only does he run these two institutions, but he has built a large collection for them. Read on for more from Hans in part forty seven of my ‘Meet the Collector’ series.
Hans Looijen - photography Bastiaan Musscher
1. When did your interest in the field of outsider/folk art begin?
In a way I have been interested since my early years. I have always had an interest for ‘otherness’, be it in cultural expressions or cultures. At a young age that curiosity sparked my interest for Maya culture from Meso-America. I am still following up on results of investigations in that field. What I find most satisfying is seeing a ‘mirror’ if you like of basic principles in all cultures: the necessities to come up with answers to our bewilderment upon our very existence as human beings, looking up at a night sky and wondering how on earth… Every culture and most people have asked themselves questions on the meaning of our lives and we all have spun stories to make sense of the world we observe / perceive. To be honest I was a bit reluctant at first to engage in Outsider Art, at that time I had seen great works but at the same time there was (at least in the Netherlands) too much fuss on disability in my view, especially in several exhibitions I knew that stressed the limits of the mental capabilities of the makers as they should have focused on art and creativity. That all changed as I stepped off a train in Paris and immediately met a befriended contemporary artist who told me there was a great exhibition I should absolutely see. I managed to steal some time from my busy schedule and went to see it in between meetings. I was unprepared and completely blown away by what I saw… Art Brut Japonais with works by Shinichi Sawada and many great artists from Japan swept me from my feet. It was really like that. I immediately started to work to bring an overview to our museum, and we did in 2012. That involved us in the field and we started to collect works made in the Netherlands, filling a big void as the initial attention had slipped into oblivion, maybe exactly because great works had been presented for the wrong reasons and lack of a dedicated museum program. No one in the Dutch museum world took a serious interest anymore at the time. That changed quickly because of the 2013 Venice Biennale.
Exhibition Japan - Hans with Queen Maxima at the opening -photography Janiek Dam
2. When did you become a collector of this art? How many pieces do you think are in your collection now? And do you exhibit any of it on the walls of your home or elsewhere?
As we curated the exhibition “Japan” in 2011, I had my eye on great works, and we managed to collect some. During the exhibition a couple created a private fund that they donated to the Museum to collect. This enabled us to start collecting from that moment on. My first acquisition was a marvelous piece I bought at Henry Boxer’s by the artist Richard C Smith ‘Soul Saver / the Offering’. We currently hold about 1,400 works of art in this collection. As director, I try to stay out of collecting for myself, that is often hard to follow up, of course my own fascinations and preferences become visible in the collection of the museum, that is inevitable. And yes, you could find the odd piece here and there at our home, no more than a handful, though my wife has acquired most of them. I focus on world objects from different cultures to avoid being part of discussions of me being for the museum and for myself.
3. Can you tell us a bit about your background before becoming CEO of the Het Dolhuys and the Outsider Art Museum in Amsterdam?
For a longtime the answer to questions like these were, where did I grew up, study, interest etc. For many years I left out the fact that my mother had a psychiatric disease, for which she spent years in a clinic later in life. As we grew up, her state of mind and her mood were part of everyday life and nothing to be alarmed about. As you grow older you learn that things are different elsewhere. My reaction was to cling even more to stories on the providence of things, stories that gave meaning to my immediate environment. This resulted in my choice to study as far away from home as I could, becoming a museologist - following up my interest in Maya culture by going to Mexico and travelling the now very much trodden Ruta Maya in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras for as long and far as my money took me, which was limited as I was a student with little means. I ended up in some very dangerous situations without harm, turned down a job at the National History and Archeology Institution in Oaxaca to finish my studies in Leiden and would leave for Amsterdam as soon as I could. I landed a job as project manager for a new museum pavilion. Later I worked at a bureau that supported NGO’s and was in charge of all cultural an educational projects. The best one came at the UN Indigenous People year, for which I created a huge exhibition, film festival, and publications supported by the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I started my own company for museums and exhibition centres. Our clients were NGO’s like Greenpeace and Oxfam and natural conservation organisations. Most fun were museum exhibitions and the entire refurbishing of a museum on maritime history in Zeeland, in the south of the Netherlands. That project made me decide I wanted to be at the other end of the table in charge of a museum to create a meaningful public program… and that is how I ended up at the Museum of the Mind.
Richard C. Smith - Soul Saver or The Offering, 2013 - Collection Museum of the Mind
4. Can you tell us how the two roles you have at Het Dolhuys and the Outsider Art Museum work together? Do you split your time each week between the two?
This spring we decided to bring together the two ‘houses’ under one name: Museum of the Mind with two locations. Museum of the Mind / Dolhuys, Haarlem and Museum of the Mind / Outsider Art at the Hermitage Amsterdam. Due to Covid-19 we all have to work from home, not a great offer in my case as I just moved out of the historic city centre of Amsterdam to a town 20 minutes away in the midst of historic estates with forests and fields. We all learn that a lot can be done from a distance. Before I spent most of my time in Haarlem with one or two days in Amsterdam. After the Museum of the Mind Haarlem is reopened (early November this year), and we are allowed again, I do want to devote more time visiting artists, collections and museums abroad on outsider art to plan new projects.
5. What is it that draws your eye away from contemporary art to outsider/folk art? Or do you collect both?
It maybe an answer you have heard before, but what lures me into the work of artists outside the canon of art and art history is their absolute lack of pretense, I mean no polished or calculated attitudes towards their own work or potential clients for it. At the same time many artists express their inner convictions, moods, obsessions and present us an outlook on (aspects of) the world that conveys meanings that are telling and exceed the highly individual inner world from which it might originate.
Lionel Plak, Untitled 2, Collection Museum of the Mind
6. Are you drawn to certain artists that you have seen exhibited in your museum, and then want to have these in your personal collection? Or does it work the other way and you want to show artists in the museum that you have recently purchased works by for your personal collection?
Oh yes I do! I am temped many times, but I resist the urge to collect myself. I find it unethical to collect privately as the director of the most prominent museum in the Netherlands that does so. I want to avoid any impression I would profit personally from exhibiting works at the museum from artists I would hold personally. That is why I do not collect this art myself.
7. A conflicted term at present, but can you tell us about your opinion of the term outsider art, how you feel about it and if there are any other words that you think we should be using instead?
Oh that blasted label! If we look at sports (horseracing for one) or politics, the ‘outsider’ wins the prize while no one paid attention or betted for the person (or horse) referred to in such a way. Yet in our field in the arts it now looks like everyone only wants to avoid expressing anything about the social status of the artists involved. We should call it the other art, just like that. That may be as it is, many artists are pushed out or cling to the fringes of our societies, let’s be frank about it. In my view it is merely a question of reception, providence. Does a well known gallery present the artists or is the now more and more awkward ‘outsider art’ involved, then the works are often seen in a different light and judged accordingly. After Lionel Plak, who lives and works in the Netherlands, was collected by us and presented in several of our exhibitions he was offered a show in a contemporary modern art gallery in Amsterdam, all his works sold, this is how it should be. By the way, his sales stood in stark contrast with works by contemporary artists at a show at the same time in the same gallery as well.
8. What style of work, if any, is of particular interest to you within this field? (for example is it embroidery, drawing, sculpture, and so on)
Oh, I do totally fall for needlework. I do not know what it is. The visible hours put in, the unlikeliness of the material, the tactility, all these things. But sculptures also always attract my attention. Although paper is the means by definition of many of the artists and we do have many drawings and works on paper - there is so much that sometimes I tend to look for other material expressions. One of the artist in our collection builds his works with staples… this hooked me immediately.
Exhibition View – ‘Woest’ - Willem van Genk – Design: Walter Van Beirendonck. Photograpy: Bastiaan van Musscher
9. Would you say you had a favourite artist or piece of work within your collection? And why?
This is of course an outrageous question. You cannot ask any teacher or parent to pick a favourite, let alone any collector. But secretly I do, Melvin Way, Lionel Plak, Willem van Genk, Aradne, Sawada, should I go on?
10. Where would you say you buy most of your work from: a studio, art fairs, exhibitions, auctions, or direct from artists?
It is a mix, we acquired through studios / ateliers in the beginning of our collecting. As a result the quality that was present is now harder to find in these Dutch ateliers. Auctions is hardly ever, just a few pieces. Art fairs yes, whenever I can. We have had several donations from artists, and I have bought directly from artists as well.
11. Is there an exhibition in this field of art that you have felt has been particularly important? And why?
That must be ‘The Encyclopedic Palace’ that contained many pieces by makers outside the canon of art and art history. What was particularly strong was that outsider art was not even mentioned once, the focus was on the origins of creativity.
12. Are there any people within this field that you feel have been particularly important to pave the way for where the field is at now?
In line with my previous answer, the influence of Massimiliano Gioni, curator of ‘The Encyclopedic Palace’ can hardly be overstated, and Jean Hubert Martin with ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ was of major influence in the art world before that.
Willem van Genk - Collage of Hate - Stitching Willem van Genk. Collection: Museum of the Mind
13. What are the plans for the Outsider Art Museum in Amsterdam going forward? And can you give us any insights into upcoming shows?
We aim to present more and more dialogues between art and artists with and without recognition in the art world. We start 2021 with the collection of Intuit from Chicago with Henry Darger and Charles Steffen that I colleted, amongst others. Next is ‘For the Love of Art’ an overview of nearly 10 years of collecting for the museum. We present our treasures and darlings we cherish and want to share our dedication to the artists and their works with the public. A bit further down the road is an overview of the oeuvre of Tobias Tebbe, an absolute master of invention. His series of drawings (one work comprises 260 x A3 folio) is a promised gift to the museum collection.
14. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Let us keep bringing this art to the attention of curators, so it will be an important part of all contemporary and modern art institutions without divisions.
Sawada Shinichi, Untitled. Collection: Museum of the Mind