out of storage: temporary modernist museum

Maastricht

That is the backyard of the Timmerfabriek in the new Belvedère area in the center of Maastricht. There are rumors that the city plans to establish a cultural locality in the former Sphinx building from 1905. It is on on the monument list since 1996 and is the most impressive building around. In the past two years events like Fashionclash, the Graduation show of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Kunsttour were hosted in the location.

Pop-up Restaurant for Recentre by Maurer United

Since June the Timmerfabriek is home to the collection of FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais. FRAC collects contemporary artwork with a small budget that educated them to buy before an artist achieves star level and inflated market prices. They do it since almost 30 years, which proves, by looking at their extensive and worthy collection, that they have a good sense for pieces that reach a high value in the world of art.

Guus Beumer, initiator of ‘Out of Storage’

The responsible person for the ‘Out of storage’ – Provisoire & Définitif is Guus Beumer, who is also director of Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht and the commissioner of the Dutch Pavilion during the Venice Biennale. It is the ‘largest temporary art museum of Europe’, says the house advertising. No one has put so much effort into the idea of a temporary museum in a town with a population of 120.000 before. It is not Paris, London or New York. It’s Maastricht – something new in ‘museum land’.

Publication for the Opera Aperta/Loose Work
Dutch pavilion at the Biennial in Venice, 2011

Once you are at the exhibition, there are 3 different ways to view the selection. There is a ‘A 15-Minute Walk of Fame’, ‘An Alternative History’ and ‘The Literary Route’, depending on how much time and what kind of interest you have. It’s easy to spend many hours at the exhibition and to be impressed by the artwork and the conversation with the space, which Guus describes ‘as the real star’ at Out of Storage.

‘Satellite des Sens’ by Atelier van Lieshout, 2003

During the private view by Guus Beumer, he explains how they tried to create small dialogues between the varying pieces; small hidden links that you see if you give extra attention to it, where groupings of artwork make statements of histories and identities. Fundamentally the space and its temporary content gives an impression of the collective memory that was produced by FRAC and director Hilde Teerlinck in collaboration with ‘Marres Projects’ . They brought in the aura of diverse artist. Needless to say, I think Out of Storage will be not forgotten once it abandoned the South of the Netherlands.

‘Aquarelle’ by Phillipe Meste, 1998

Inside ‘Respect’ by Erik van Lieshout, 2003

‘Copy Right (Colored version)’ by Superflex, 2007

‘Taboo’ by Maddalena Fragnito De Giorgio

‘8 Dec.1994’ & ‘9 Dec.1994’ by On Kawara

‘Type B’ (4 pieces) by Masato Nakamura, 2006

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