Over the past year The Hague’s museum collection has been enriched with work by contemporary artists who offer new perspectives on the world around us. Recently, Kunstmuseum Den Haag has added monumental works by Oscar Murillo, Steffani Jemison, Moshekwa Langa, Randa Mirza and Emma Talbot to its collection. These works are now on show in the international group exhibition New New Babylon – Visions for Another Tomorrow.
Kunstmuseum Den Haag is redirecting its collection, with a view to enhancing its multivocality and topical relevance. The monumental works by Steffani Jemison, Moshekwa Langa, Randa Mirza, Oscar Murillo and Emma Talbot have added important contemporary voices to the collection. The new acquisitions highlight the museum’s new programme line Making the Future, which considers not only what is lacking, but actively creates room for artists who challenge and enrich the canon, with an optimistic, critical and unifying take on the past, present and future.
“Collecting means thinking ahead. We are investing in makers who manage to visualise major issues – sometimes in monumental work, sometimes in small poetic pieces. These works speak to the icons in our collection, from Mondrian to Rego and from Constant to Monet. I am incredibly proud that we have been able to make this happen, thanks to the support of many.” – Margriet Schavemaker, general director, Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Oscar Murillo, disrupted frequencies, 2013-2022
Over a period of twelve years Oscar Murillo (b. 1986, CO), his studio team and his family collected thousands of drawings by young humans from all over the world, made on canvases that were attached to their desks for months. The drawings have been made into a monumental patchwork, like a collective consciousness of time. Connected by streaks of blue paint that are reminiscent of the sea or sky, the installation outlines a visionary world beyond geopolitical borders. Its acquisition of disrupted frequencies makes Kunstmuseum Den Haag the first Dutch museum to add work by Oscar Murillo to its collection, building on his first Dutch solo exhibition Social Cataracts at KM21 (2021).
Emma Talbot, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 2022
Emma Talbot (b. 1969, UK) reflects on the human tendency to flee to an allegedly ‘natural’ world at times of crisis. Inspired by Paul Gauguin’s painting of the same name from 1897–98, she questions this desire. Moving fluidly through different times, Talbot considers the future from the perspective of mythology, feminism and ecology. Her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands was Sounders of the Depths (2019) at KM21.
Randa Mirza, Beirutopia (series), ongoing
Randa Mirza (b. 1978, LB) exposes the tension between the utopian promises of construction projects in Beirut and the messy reality of this urban environment. Her keen visual idiom shows how futuristic visions of urban development exclude residents from their own future. Randa Mirza’s solo exhibition BEIRUTOPIA is now showing at Fotomuseum Den Haag.
Steffani Jemison, Bound, 2024
In the video installation Bound Steffani Jemison (b. 1981, US) shows how the body can rise above existing systems. Professional trampolinists soar across a blue sky, as poetic references to capitalism and Black history appear beneath the surface.
Moshekwa Langa, Mogalakwena, 2018
In his installation Mogalakwena (2018) Moshekwa Langa (b. 1975, SA) depicts a personal geography based on memory rather than on official borders. Taking his childhood in a South African ‘black spot’ during apartheid as his starting point, he used yarn, objects and images to make an associative map of belonging and invisibility. Langa’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands was Omweg (2022) at KM21. Kunstmuseum Den Haag is the first Dutch museum to have a large-scale installation by Langa in its collection.
New New Babylon
In New New Babylon: Visions for Another Tomorrow Kunstmuseum Den Haag explores how contemporary artists approach utopian thinking. Based on Constant’s iconic New Babylon (1956-1974), the exhibition presents possible futures and critical reflections on the present, beyond the constraints of work, property and nation. New New Babylon shows how artists around the world – often working on a collaborative, collective or interdisciplinary basis – continue to look for new ways of living together and new means of visualisation.
More information and to visit the museum: https://www.kunstmuseum.nl/en