It is twice exceptional. Harry Tupan (on September 6 he turned 67 and he retired) stayed in the museum for 45 years where he started at the age of 22 – he eventually became director. Also exceptional: in the last year of that base -resistant career, in the night of 24 to 25 January, a sensational art robbery took place in the Drents Museum. From the exhibition Dacia – Rich of gold and silver Three gold bracelets and the 2,500 year old, golden helmet of Cotofenesti were stolen. Seven suspects have been arrested, the objects are still lost.
We are in his office. The interview, we have agreed, will be about what you see changing in the museum world if you are part of it for so long. But first he wants to say: “I would not sit here as quietly if the insurance did not pay. It does not bring the things back, but it is a relief: we have kept ourselves on all the rules. You don’t start anything against a bomb.”
Does the robbery change your gaze on your career?
“Quite, actually. It is part of the life that things happen to you, but this is no one for this to you. The impact was huge, on everyone, on our young employees. And we had not yet recovered from the shock or we were already attacked: we would have made mistakes. People had to seek help.”
You too?
“I had one conversation. But I was mostly the goal: to take care of our people. I think it is going well with everyone again, but you will work with security … Or with exhibitions. For myself it is a scar. I hope it is growing, but there will always be something left. And then it will ruin your entire career, but I have had a good one, I have had a good person, I have had a trying, I also had a good person, I have had a good person. I see that too. “
Harry Tupan is from Hoogeveen. He studied Museology in Leiden and Art History in Groningen. Museology was a new study at the time, he was in the first group. “My parents said: art history is always possible, do something that you can find in first. And that was Museology, because that was about the practical matters of a museum: preservation and management, education.”
What did the museum world look like when you started?
„Die was van slag. Je had toen de opkomst van de educatieve diensten, de tweede richting van museologie. En die diensten werden niet door iedereen in het museale veld gewaardeerd, vooral niet in de traditionele conservatorenhoek: daar vonden ze het maar niks. Tot die tijd was het normaal dat je als conservator moeilijke teksten schreef, een schilderij had een complete tekst ernaast en je redt je er maar mee: dat waren de mores. En toen kwamen die diensten, die het Suddenly they started to tell the public stories in the neighborhoods.
How was it in this museum? You also started as a curator.
“It was small here, almost a family business. And it was hierarchical, I was also addressed with you and the gentleman. I felt relied on, but that was the atmosphere at that time. I was still hired by a deputy, I didn’t even know what a representative was. We were a provincial service, only later we were invited.”
Did visitor numbers counted?
“You got what you got and that was okay. We had around thirty thousand visitors a year at that time. That is now five times as much.”
The Drents Museum in Assen started in 1854 as a museum of Antiquities. It moved a few times, in the mid -1970s it ended up in the former provincial government. It is still housed there, with an underground museum wing for about ten years. Harry Tupan: “With the move to the Provinciehuis we suddenly sat in a huge building. We realized: with larger rooms you can program larger exhibitions. That cost more money, but if you got more visitors it also yielded more. I remember that we were exuberantly celebrating when we achieved that with one year, but then we achieved that with one year.”
Of your visitors, 70 percent now come from the Randstad. What kind of public came here at the time?
“Especially people from the area. The north of the country, say. And in the summer holidays we had a tourist peak. Our marketing and communication was not aimed at attracting people from outside. Such a department did not even exist yet. We did the marketing itself, as curators. We placed advertisements in the big newspapers: Volkskrant, Telegraaf. Small advertisements, section advertisements. I had a colleague she placed in the introductory section, man seeks woman, woman seeks man. Then they noticed more. “
You became head of commercial matters, a new position.
“At that time, museums were accused of one Wait and See-Had mentality (he is leaning back with crossed arms): waiting for the money to come. State Secretary Rick van der Ploeg of Culture [PvdA, 1998-2002] We wanted us to think about cultural entrepreneurship: take responsibility for yourself. I found that interesting, we did that too. We had exhibitions that were taken over by other museums, for example. Then you get part of your investment back. ”
Was Rick van der Ploeg right?
“Yes, then you do. You cannot have everything paid by the community, you also have your own responsibility. Your museum shop, your hospitality industry. You can have your accommodation used for meetings.”
And now? Museums are judged: get more visitors.
“But we are there for visitors, we have to try to let as many people as possible enjoy art and beauty? I don’t think it’s a crazy thought.”
And if that thought goes together with cuts?
“That is not okay, of course. I have a different statement, namely that we as a sector also yield a lot for this city. The Drents Museum leaves 12 to 15 million a year for SMEs in Assen. So from people who spend extra money outside the museum. And we offer employment. There are eighty people here.
“I also don’t know if you should mention it commercialization when it comes to exhibitions. Yes, I was head of commercial things. But in that position I mainly went around the world for new exhibitions. And with those exhibitions you can genuinely surprise people, I like that. Then they walk into the museum here and you see them thinking, isn’t this?”
Harry Tupan
Photo Sake Elzinga
Under Harry Tupan, the Drents Museum organized various international exhibitions, often with controversial loans. The terracotta army of Xi’an from China could be seen in 2008, Dead Sea Scrolls In 2014, there was North Korean realism, Russian realism, American realism, there were archaeological treasures from Iran and Armenia, Frida Kahlo from Mexico. For Dacia – Rich of gold and silver Six hundred objects came from fifteen Romanian museums to Assen.
Why did you want international exhibitions?
“If you only get work from here, you have a competitive model in relation to each other. Why would the Kunstmuseum in The Hague Lend to Lend to Assen? You can also view it. History and visual arts. The terracotta army of Xi’an And we received 354,000 visitors.
Was that your first blockbuster?
“No, that wasn’t a blockbuster.”
Sorry?
“No, of course not. A blockbuster is an exhibition that makes you aware of earning a lot of money. You thought we knew that so many visitors would come? There is a huge misconception, which I can occasionally be very nasty. We have never made a blockbuster, I dare to say that we have never put a block buster and we have never put an exhibition in an exhibition. Then I read in the newspaper: they have made a blockbuster.
But there is a connection between what it costs to organize an exhibition and the expected yield, namely the number of visitors?
“No, that is not there. At least we assume numbers of visitors, but that is an average per year. It is possible that you go over it in a certain year. And another time you stay under it for a year. Sometimes something happens to be a great success. Although we think we have a loyal supporters of people who know there: they keep special exhibitions.”
His last exhibition as director is Microcosm – the world in a WunderkammerHe opened on the day of his birthday. Harry Tupan himself was an avid collector: animal skulls and bird eggs as a child, later, among other things, clay pipes. For this exhibition he has traveled city and country, there are loans from dozens of museums.
They trusted them?
“All major museums have made loans available: Rijksmuseum, Boijmans, Mauritshuis. That is a compliment to my colleagues here: Trust is not gone. The robbery should never have happened, but how we could have prevented it. And those adhesion statements in the form of unlimited loans made us very bad.”