The Kröller-Müller Museum’s collection closely follows the developments in modern art since the end of the nineteenth century. Helene Kröller-Müller began to collect art almost a hundred years ago. She was attracted to the avant-garde art of her own time and wished to make this more easy to understand for the general public by showing it together with old master paintings. Since the opening of the museum in 1938, her successors have followed this policy to the present day, assem-bling a collection that provides a comprehensive picture of developments in the visual arts over the last 150 years. Over the years the museum has refined its remit in terms of collecting and dis-playing, represented by several key principles: the equal value of historical and contemporary art, the equality of art regardless of its geographical origins, respect for the artist’s social contribution, a concentration on the individual experience and enjoyment of art, an emphasis on the impor-tance of historical continuity without dogma or rigid hierarchy, and attention for the value of marginal artistic practices. From this standpoint alone Vincent van Gogh, for whom Helene Kröller-Müller reserved a special place within her collection, is a great source of inspiration for our museum.

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In this part of the museum you will find the core of the Kröller-Müller Museum’s collection of modern art. The building was designed by Henry van de Velde and was opened in 1938. It was expanded in 1953 with additions including a sculpture gallery and an auditorium. During 2005 and 2006 this wing underwent substantial restoration. After entering you will find the new information centre on your left. You can use the computers here to put together your own tour. To your right is the sculpture gallery with a selection from the museum’s collection of sculptures and straight ahead of you are two galleries with a general introduction to the museum and its history. From here, or from the sculpture gallery, you will wander back in time through our collection.

‘Back in time’ means that in the following galleries you will encoun-ter work by the Constructivists of the 1920s and 1930s who strove to create a new order through their art (Schwitters, Vantongerloo); by the artists who, influenced by Cubism, produced an idealised form of realist art (Charley Toorop, Metzinger, De Chirico, Willink); by the artists of De Stijl (Mondrian, Van der Leck, Van Doesburg) and Cubism (Picasso, Gris, Braque). At the heart of the museum, in the galleries around the patio, hangs the work of Vincent van Gogh, surrounded by Neo-Impressionist (pointillist) paintings (Seurat, Signac, Van Rijsselberghe) and works by the Impressionists, Symbolists and their contemporaries (Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Redon, Thorn

Prikker, Degouve de Nuncques). In the following series of galleries there are works from the nineteenth century and a selection of old master paintings going back to the fifteenth century. For Helene Kröller-Müller it was very important to show good examples of the development from realism to what she called the ‘idealism’ of her own time.

We often receive inquiries about the unusual frames around the paintings by Van Gogh. For the presentation of our keystone collec-tion the Kröller-Müller Museum is guided by the mental legacy of Helene Kröller-Müller. We have chosen the frames that Helene Kröller-Müller had designed by Jac. van den Bosch around 1910. I provide a detailed explanation of the decision to use these frames on our website (see: www.kmm.nl / director’s column / archive / 2007

- The frames for Vincent van Gogh’s paintings).

Although the collection’s historical aim has been to chart the development of modern Western art, it also has an increasingly broad international orientation with a conscious remit to collect works from other cultures. In this way we hope to contribute to artistic emancipation and to break down hierarchies. This broad-ening of the collection is also part of the belief in the universal nature of visual language and the notion that art contributes to respect for other cultures. As such, I would like to draw your attention to two remarkable works of art that you will encounter on your route.

The first is a two-part work from 1993 by the Polish artist Miro-slaw Balka. One part is sited outside and is visible from the sculp-ture gallery: a sunken concrete trough with two recesses like empty graves and two seating elements. The other part is inside, in the space in front of the information centre, and consists of a steel trough of the same dimensions as its concrete counterpart. This part is filled with the sand excavated whilst burying the other part and is covered with a layer of felt, which is kept at constant body temperature by a heating element. For me this work is a reflection on human mortality, full of compassion and respect for the human condition, literally and figuratively giving off warmth. The second work dates from 1994 and is by the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping. It stands outside at the very end of the route, in front of the museum’s old entrance. It has the form of a grave from the Tang dynasty, an upturned tortoise with two recesses. In the display cases in front of the windows inside the museum are effigies that would have been placed in such a grave as gifts for the dead. They were stolen from graves and found their way into Western collections in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Huang Yong Ping realised that the thousands of effigies such as these all over the world can never be reunited with the dead, and so brought the grave to the effigies as a symbolic solution and as a warning against injustice.

Kröller-Müller Museum

Houtkampweg 6 6731 AW Otterlo

www.kmm.nl

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