The Hermitage Amsterdam immediately severs ties with Russia. The museum will be closed from Friday until further notice. This was announced in a press release on Thursday afternoon.
For a long time, the Hermitage Amsterdam kept aloof from political developments in Putin’s Russia. After the attack on Ukraine, according to the museum’s board and supervisory board, that aloofness is “no longer tenable” and it has severed ties with the Hermitage Saint Petersburg.
Last Sunday, the museum left it with a statement on social media in which it announced it was “dismayed” at the Russian invasion.
The Hermitage aan de Amstel was opened in 2009 as a partner of the Hermitage Saint Petersburg, Russia’s largest museum. Since then, well-attended exhibitions have been held in Amsterdam permanently, showing parts of the approximately 3 million art treasures of the Russian state museum. The exhibition opened at the end of January Russian avant-garde. Revolution in art †
Supervisors, directors, management and employees of the Hermitage Amsterdam are having a hard time breaking the ties with the Hermitage Saint Petersburg, the press release said. “Over the past decades, there has been harmonious cooperation with Russian colleagues.”
The orientation of the museum has always been with art. “The expression ‘art connects’ characterized the relationship. A border has been crossed with the invasion of the Russian army. War destroys everything.”
The museum says it hopes for peace and “for changes in the future in Russia that will allow us to restore ties with the Hermitage Saint Petersburg”.
The Museum of the Spirit, for outsider art, which is located in a wing of the Hermitage, will remain open.