One museum, one job – super specialists from the museum world about their jobs

The planting expert

‘I can now completely read a Piet Oudo garden’

No matter how hard Climmy Schneider tries, there are still ‘problem plants’ in the sculpture garden of the Singer museum in Laren. Take Imperata cylin-drica, for example, a grass that turns such a beautiful red in the autumn. “That is an important plant in garden design, but if you don’t control it, the grass will spread throughout the garden in no time. Last season we dug in the root ball for the first time in a pot without a bottom, in order to hopefully moderate the root growth a bit. And luckily, it worked!”

Coming up with solutions for these kinds of situations is the job of Climmy Schneider. She is an independent plant expert and Singer Laren hires her to maintain the sculpture garden that world-famous garden designer Piet Oudolf designed and built in 2018. Schneider first worked with him during the Floriade in 2002. She got to know his work and style better and better and is now allowed to keep the garden of Singer Laren in his mind.

Once every two and a half months she makes a tour of the museum garden with 15,000 plants. With the original planting drawings in hand, she checks all borders: are delicate plants outcompeted by larger plants? Is the layering in planting as intended by Oudolf still intact? She makes a list of all those points of interest, which she passes on to the regular gardeners. “I think that in their eyes I may be ‘that strict woman’ who comes to tell me everything that is wrong. But when they see the effect in a few months, they’ll understand why I’m so on top of it.”

Because that is an essential part of a Piet Oudolf garden: the garden offers a different experience in all seasons. Twice a year the master himself comes to see how the garden is looking. “It doesn’t feel like taking an exam. Not anymore, at least”, laughs Schneider. “I can now read a Piet Oudolf garden completely, dare I say. That is not a simple book from the Bouquet series, but a garden like a literary novel.”

the restorer

‘Be extra careful with the black lines’

Susanne Kensche knows every inch of the most famous sculpture from the sculpture garden of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo: Jardin d’émail† She was project leader of the restoration in 2016 and then spent four years on it, day in, day out.

No wonder it hurt her when she recently found out that a schoolboy had written something on the wall with a pencil. “It feels disrespectful. You wouldn’t just write on a Van Gogh with a pen, would you? If I caught someone, well…”

She pauses. “Then I’m not so kind, I guess.”

Susanne Kensche is a restorer and has a special task: on the last Monday of the month she meticulously cleaned the Jardin d’émail by artist Jean Dubuffet. The surface of the work is 600 square meters, the walls around another 300 square meters. And after a month, that’s pretty gross. “That’s because people are allowed to walk on the work floor. So you see footsteps, stripes of rubber soles. Plus everything that nature brings us: leaves, twigs and, if it has been wet, such a green, algae-like layer.”

Recently two tourists asked if I should do this as a punishment

Susanne Kensche restorer

Kensche does the cleaning together with a colleague. One wets the surface with warm water from the garden hose, the other goes after it with the brush. “We have a whole set: from a toothbrush to a large natural brush. We have to be extra careful with the black lines. Because we applied these lines manually with a brush during the restoration, they have a small raised edge on the side. If you brush it too hard at right angles, you’ll push off a piece of paint. So with the lines I brush extra carefully and always with the paint direction.”

Kensche and her colleague do not use soap. The drains lead directly to the groundwater. “But with stubborn bird droppings or a rubber shoe impression, we sometimes use a small amount of solvent, which we apply locally with a cotton swab and then remove it again.” Such painstaking work provokes reactions from visitors. Kensche: “Recently, two British tourists asked if I had to do this all week as a punishment. I myself sometimes have to laugh at the idea that I am cleaning a thousand square meters with a toothbrush.”

But the result may be there. “The before and after effect of this work is enormous; after cleaning it is really radiant white! That is very satisfying. This way the artwork can shine again as it was intended.”

The lighting designer

‘I serve the artwork’

The potato eaters† It is one of the showpieces of the Van Gogh Museum, but it is quite a task to highlight it, says lighting designer Domenico Casillo. “It is a dark painting, but there are many colors hidden in it: many shades of white and gray, dark green. You want to show that as best as possible, but I can’t just put a bright lamp on it. Then the work would discolour irreparably.”

The solution was to change the color of the rear wall. “When we painted it gold, all the colors suddenly came out much better because of the contrast. That was a pleasant discovery.”

Domenico Casillo works as a lighting designer at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Light is an important factor in the exhibition of the paintings, and at the same time the greatest enemy of the bright paint colors for which Van Gogh works are known. Casillo’s task is to reconcile these conflicting interests.

In doing so, he has to make do with lamps that are adjusted to a maximum of 50 lux. After extensive research by the museum, it turned out that this is the maximum amount of light that a Van Gogh can tolerate. “50 lux is not much, if you consider that the standard for a workplace is 500 lux, for example,” says Casillo. “However, the paintings must be clearly visible and people of all ages must be able to read the information signs.”

For a new exhibition, Casillo works for weeks on an extensive lighting plan. He measures whether visitors do not cast a shadow on the work when looking at the painting. And he sees whether he should set the LED lamps a little more red or yellow to make the colors stand out better. He goes for the ‘wow’ effect with visitors. “No one will notice that it is the light, but I don’t care. I serve the artwork.”

Domenico Casillo is also a great art lover in private, but he always has to visit exhibitions twice. “The first time I don’t see any of the paintings because I only look at the lamps. Seriously,” he laughs. “I am regularly addressed by the guards: Sir, what exactly do you do? But I can’t do otherwise. Luckily I have a museum year card, so I can go back in peace.”