What steps are required to set up an exhibition? 150 Years of the Groninger Museum – Behind the Scenes offers visitors a look at these and other activities that go on behind closed doors. Visitors can discover this show and more during the Groninger Museum’s 150th anniversary celebrations, in a year filled with fantastic exhibitions and festive activities. 150 Years of the Groninger Museum – Behind the Scenes opens on Friday 29 March.
This exhibition pulls back the curtain on everything visitors don't normally see. How does a collection come into being, and how are artworks conserved? How are they transported and subsequently presented to the public? Behind the Scenes not only answers these questions, it gives visitors a chance to get involved. The exhibition is interactive and calls on visitors to get creative. They can choose which frame best suits a particular artwork or decide which lighting shows it off most effectively.
Stolen Van Gogh to go back on display
In 2020, Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring was stolen from the Singer Laren museum. In 2023 came the joyful news that the painting had been recovered. After research by conservator Marjan de Visser at the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring will return to public view in Behind the Scenes at the Groninger Museum.
150 years of the Groninger Museum: how it all started
The Groninger Museum was born a century and a half ago in a small room in Groningen’s provincial government building. At that point it was simply a cabinet of curiosities. In 1894, it moved to Praediniussingel and became the Groninger Museum van Provinciale Oudheden (Groningen Museum of Provincial Antiquities). Today, visitors to central Groningen can’t miss the current building, a striking, colourful structure that rises up out of the water. Designed by Alessandro Mendini, it has housed the Groninger Museum since 1994. The collection has long since outgrown that small room and now contains more than 60,000 objects. More than 200,000 people visit the museum every year.
150 Years of the Groninger Museum – Behind the Scenes is on view from 29 March 2024.