The new Museum Fenix ​​about migration does not want to avoid fierce theme, but also show beautiful sides “

Two weeks before the opening by Queen Máxima – on 15 May – Fenix ​​is ​​still completely closed with construction fences. Only those who have an appointment will be let in by a crack between two gates into the new ‘Art Museum about Migration’ in Rotterdam. From the Fenixloodsen (there are two), millions of emigrants left Europe on the Nieuwe Maas. “Fenix”, stated in the first message about the museum in 2018 NRC“Want to give those emigrants a face by transferring their emotion to you.”

The quote is by Wim Pijbes, former director of the Rijksmuseum and Rotterdammer. Since 2017 he has been director of the Droom en Daad Foundation, a wealth fund for Art and Culture of the Rotterdam billionaire family Van der Vorm. The Van der Vorm family made Fortuin with (among other things) the Holland-America line.

Fenix ​​II was purchased in 2018 by Droom en Daad. In the following years it was renovated and art was bought for the sixteen thousand square meters that the museum has. From the list on the site: “Paintings, sculptures, videos, installations and photos of both emerging talents and internationally celebrated names, such as Francis Alÿs, Sophie Calle, Shilpa Gpta, William Kentridge, KimSooja, Steve Mirgon, Adriagon, Adriagorzata,,, Borgorzata, Perry, Yinka Shonibare, Bill Viola, Danh Võ and more. ”

We are in the office of Anne Kremers, director of Fenix ​​since 2020. Through an inner window you have a view of the huge museum space on the first floor. You see The bus (1995), The life -size, dust made of a New York city bus by pop art artist Red Grooms. Also see you Bottari Truck – Migrateurs (2007-2009), a fully loaded, decayed Peugeot 404 by the Korean artist Kimsojaja.

Anne Kremers (35) studied art history. She became director of Villa Mondriaan in Winterswijk at the age of 24. From 2017 to 2019 she worked in Hong Kong at the Chow Tai Fook Art Foundation. As director of Fenix, she was a fellow assistant of the art collection since 2020. At the time, more and more people came to work, in the meantime the museum has around one hundred employees. Anne Kremers lives in Rotterdam.

You were asked to become director of Fenix ​​in 2020. Didn’t you think: Pooh, that’s a big theme?

“It is an emotional theme. As long as people exist, we move, we migrate. I am convinced that you can find a story about migration in every family, it is a universal and timeless theme. And that we tell stories about departure and arrival here, is very logical: millions of people left from exactly this place to another country. Sense of Place Is important, you feel the history, the testimonials here. “

I also mean: current and controversial.

“Yes, it matters. And you want that too: that visitors to a museum find something, feel something. Our museum must stimulate you, it has to do something to you. Only then does something come loose. It would almost be an insult if people would not find anything about this museum – so come on. We sometimes forget that migration is about all of us: wanting a better life for your children is human.” ”

It would almost be an insult if people didn’t find anything about this museum – so come on

It is also about being welcome or not.

“Of course, absolutely. One person may cross a border – and the other is not allowed. But we do not give answers, we are going to ask questions. The artists will ask questions. You will soon look through the eyes of a hundred artists for migration. To say goodbye, homesickness, flights, boundaries. Looking for happiness, keep hope.”

How do you put together a collection on this theme? What are criteria?

“What we found out as a team: that it is relatively easy to make a heavy museum about migration. A lot of art about it is fierce, the examples are heavy. That is perhaps also the way we think about migration, how we look at it. But an exhibition must be in balance – and we wanted to look through fierce theme, but at the same time I think it is also important that one is also a lot of seal that one is also a lot of seals that one is also a lot of seals that one is also a lot of sorts. be open, accessible museum. ”

Only a year ago, says Anne Kremers, was it decided to call Fenix ​​an ‘art museum’. In the course of time, many more works of art had been collected for the collection than personal and historical material: eighty versus twenty percent. That personal and historical material – including a 3.6 -meter -high fragment from the Berlin Wall – is partly installed between the artworks, partly consists of an installation of about two thousand collected suitcases, the boot dool court.

You can find those suitcases and the associated stories on the ground floor, just like the photo exhibition The Family of Migrants: 200 photos on the theme of migration of 136 photographers from 55 countries. There is also the square, a covered, freely accessible space that is meant to also attract the public that would not immediately go to a museum. You can organize a program there by appointment, including the use of a large kitchen.

And then on the ground floor the Tornado, a ma Yansong of the Chinese Mad Architects, begins, double helix made of stainless steel with wooden staircases in the rotating spirals. It is an eye -catcher: from a few hundred meters away you see the shiny steel coming out of the roof of the museum.

Anne Kremers: “Because it is a double helix, there are two sheds: you can choose for yourself which stairs you take. You walk up as if you are going on board a ship, but because the stairs are hanging together, you can change route on the way. You may feel insecure: which way will I go. The stairs are one moment wide, then they are the whole time, and in the rust, and in the rust. The reflections of other people: you all go up.

With what feeling do you want people to leave the museum?

“I want you to look at the world just a little differently. That you may think about what your group of friends looks like. Consider that migration is about people at all times. Migration is universal and timeless, but also very personal. What you have experienced in your life, will be decisive for how you will experience the museum that the experience is not for you.”