Intimacies by Katie Kitamura

Author:Katie Kitamura [Kitamura, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

10.

Jana’s opening at the Mauritshuis was more than usually crowded, perhaps due to the theme of the exhibition, one that was both serious and tongue in cheek. Jana had frequently spoken about the pressure to achieve better attendance numbers, to find ways of reframing the permanent collection so that it appealed to a younger and broader audience.

It was with this directive in mind that Jana had conceived the current exhibition, which was titled Slow Food and was the museum’s first exhibition devoted to still-life paintings of food. Jana admitted the concept and the title in particular were something of a gimmick, entirely different to the first two exhibitions she had overseen. But she insisted that she had found plenty of merit in the idea. It’s a clear theme in Golden Age painting, a definite genre, she said, even if titles like Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels do make you think of a Jeff Koons sculpture. I suppose that’s interesting in and of itself. There is a lot to be said about class and consumption and the culture of display.

I looked at the people gathered in the museum lobby, dressed in designer brands and playing ostentatiously with their smartphones. They drank their wine and stood around the bust of Johan Maurits, who founded the museum with a fortune built from the transatlantic slave trade and the expansion of Dutch Brazil, Jana had told me the history on a previous visit. She wished they would take the bust down, not only did it celebrate a slave trader and colonialist, it wasn’t even a good piece of art. I had to agree, I thought Maurits appeared particularly pompous in this rendering by Bartholomeus Eggers, with his jowls and pursed lips and ornate dress. He stared into space, one hand splayed across his front. Although the bust was surrounded by guests, no one seemed to pay it any mind, the history present but unconsidered. As I watched, a man in a suit yawned and brushed against the bust before lazily righting himself again.

I went upstairs, where I saw Jana on the far side of the gallery, deep in conversation with two women with perfectly coiffed blond hair, they were both wearing suits and high heels, as if they had arrived directly from the office. The quality of Jana’s attention seemed to suggest that they were donors, she was nodding enthusiastically but her smile was stiff and hollow. I didn’t want to interrupt and instead went into the next gallery, which housed the permanent collection. The room was empty, and I wandered undisturbed, the sounds of the crowd receding as I passed through.

The rooms at the Mauritshuis were small in scale, galleries that felt almost domestic compared to the exhibition spaces at some museums, their size so immense they seemed to force an experience of sublimity upon the visitor. I thought that I preferred the intimacy of these rooms, which were better suited to the paintings not only because of the size of

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