Almost 400 years after the creation of Rembrandt van Rijn’s early masterpiece, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632), an extremely diverse and carefully selected group of international artists has been brought together for the realization of an exhibition project in which Rembrandt’s painting acts as the catalyst for a process of reflective making to revive, interrogate and evolve it into expressions of contemporary art, reflecting their individual and creative values, from a 21st century point of view. The conceptual force and power of the whole, to be shown in these spaces, by means of the diversity as generated by the selection of artists, will together form a matrix of interlocking visual conversations. The works reflect the breadth of media recognizable in contemporary art, equally divided between two- and three-dimensional interpretations.
The Anatomy Lesson Revisited is an exhibition and educational project based on a synchronized individual reflection by an international group of artists. It has been developed by the Dutch artists Ron Weijers, Larisa Sjoerds and Frans de Winter in collaboration with the UK based curator Colin Rhodes and tactical advisor Marieta Reijerkerk. The exhibition has been scheduled to take place in 2023.
Researching the anatomy of the human body has always triggered fascination and inspiration for artists. The Anatomy Lesson Revisited embodies the potential to showcase a unique conceptual exhibition on that particular concept. Seventeen 21st-century artistic interpretations inspired by Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, especially created for this exhibition, will be on shown.
The artistic and conceptual relation between the human body and mind and the medical, magic world of anatomical dissection are ingredients that fueled the inspiration of the participating artists during the creation of the artworks that will be included in The Anatomy Lesson Revisited. A carefully selected and highly diverse international group of artists includes: Bea Last (UK), Hans Rikken (NL), Johanna Schweizer (NL), Karin Arink (NL), Harry Schumacher (NL), Gilles Olry (F), Hans van der Ham (NL), Efrat Zehavi (IL/NL), David Jenowe (USA), Frank Vanhooren (B), Geert Mul (NL), Frans De Winter (NL), Larisa Sjoerds (NL), Rik van Iersel (NL), Steve Moseley (USA), Ron Weijers (NL) and Macha Mélanie & Karinne Granier - Compagnie Puls'Art (F).
The France-based choreographer Macha Mélanie and her dance group Compagnie Puls'Art developed a unique performance based on Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson, to be performed and documented during the opening of the exhibition. The performance investigating the fragile balance between the artworks, the artists, and visitors. Video documentation of the performance will be installed in the galleries and shown on flatscreen throughout the course of the exhibition.
An educational program will be developed for the Anatomy Lesson Revisited exhibition by museum guide and educational developer Larisa Sjoerds. The organization will also develop a side program with presentations, readings and exhibition tours by the artists and the curator. Video interviews with curator and individual artists on their concept and motivation are considered for public relation within a wider range of media and platforms for promotion.
The exhibition has been realized with the support 10dence platform, artifacts, Global Art Project, High Art Fridays, Inspirational Magazine, Artist Run Alliance, ArtWeek, ArtWall and municipality Ghent, amongst others
The Anatomy Lesson Revisited – an introduction by Colin Rhodes - curator
Why revisit?
Rembrandt painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp in 1632 when he was twenty-five years old. It functioned on several levels: as scientific record, memorial to prominent individuals, and confirmation of civic order. It was also a bravura feat of painting that powerfully laid claim to the power of art to breathe life, as it were, into inert matter. Since this was Rembrandt’s first major portrait commission since arriving in Amsterdam from Leiden, The Anatomy Lesson it functioned as a calling card for future work.
The main subject of the portrait, Tulp, was praelector of the guild of surgeons and a graduate of Leiden University. Yet, in many ways, the focal point of the painting is the cadaver that is the object of the annual public dissection, which the artist rendered as believably as dead flesh as he had the living faces of the other figures in the portrait.
Because of Rembrandt’s clever staging, the represented space opens to the viewer outside the picture, who is therefore always inevitably a member of Tulp’s audience. The external viewer enacts the role of constant, but ever-changing embodied witness, so that nearly four hundred years later Rembrandt’s painting still speaks; still has much to say. Located in a richly textured, particularized past, it resonates with our present. It speaks to history – of culture, science, and art – it is true, but it simultaneously speaks to creative forces and challenges that resonate with human interactions and lived experience: innovation, individual aspiration and social change, crime and punishment, ethics, knowledge creation, and paradigm shifts. Perhaps most powerfully it speaks to the multivalent notion of theatre, from site of public instruction and entertainment to medical and martial operations.
When the viewer outside the picture is also an artist, imaginative participation can transform into a response that is at once creative and tangible, as a work of art. In such cases The Anatomy Lesson acts as a catalyst for the process of reflective making, such that the contemporary artist speaks to and extends its communicative voices whilst producing a singular artwork that can operate independently of its source. In this way the communicative chain of things that are by nature eternally fixed and contingent continues.
This is why it seems both necessary and exciting to revisit The Anatomy Lesson now, and, moreover, to do so from the diverse perspectives of seventeen artists, each creating a singular response, which together will form a matrix of interlocking visual conversations in which viewers will be able to immerse themselves.
Who are the artists?
An international group of artists have been chosen for this project, reflecting a diversity of approach, culture, and media. This will ensure an engaged audience experience that embraces a series of communicative vessels that will in their totality be at once contradictory, at times inharmonious, organic, challenging, complex and emotionally and psychologically fulfilling. Participating artists: Karin Arink (NL), Hans van der Ham (NL), David Jenowe (USA), Bea Last (UK), Rik van Iersel (NL), Steve Moseley (USA), Geert Mul (NL), Gilles Olry (France), Hans Rikken (NL), Harry Schumacher (NL), Johanna Schweizer (NL), Larisa Sjoerds (NL), Frank Vanhooren (B), Ron Weijers (NL), Frans de Winter (NL) and Efrat Zehavi (IL/NL) and Macha Mélanie & Karinne Granier (F) Choreographer and Art Director at ‘Compagnie Puls'Art’, will prepare a dance performance for the official opening of the exhibition inspired by The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp.
Colin Rhodes – Curator - November 2021
Experienced senior leader. Professor of Art, writer, and artist, with a strong history of publication and working in the higher education industry and on NFP boards. Skilled in Nonprofit Organizations, Art Education, Research Design, Lecturing, Academic Writing, Curating, Art Making, and leading change. Strong board experience. Higher education professional graduated from Goldsmiths University of London, University of Essex, and Australian Institute of Company Directors. Fellow of Royal Society of Arts.
Marieta Reijerkerk is currently working as chairwoman of the board at Pulchri Studio in The Hague. Pulchri Studio is one of the oldest and biggest art foundations or societies as well as a contemporary art gallery, located in the beautiful and historic city center of The Hague. On average Pulchri Studio hosts sixty exhibitions a year.
Marieta Reijerkerk also works as a professional artist. She often compares her work with the idea of a train station. A station can be a point of departure or of arrival. On a trip, stations also pass by as intermediate points, where you might just look through the window and watch what’s outside. You can take that impression with you and keep it in the background of your thoughts. She sees her works as such intermediate points; each work is a part of her, an impression she took along with her, from which she might have created it. For the visitors contemplating it, her artwork might be a point of departure, an inspiration. And for those who keep her work at home or in their office, her design can represent an arrival station - a finished piece of perfection.
Bea Last - United Kingdom
Hans Rikken - the Netherlands
Johanna Schweizer - the Netherlands
Karin Arink - the Netherlands
Harry Schumacher - the Netherlands
Gilles Olry - France
Hans van der Ham - the Netherlands
Efrat Zehavi - Israel/the Netherlands
David Jenowe - United Stated of America
Frank Vanhooren - Belgium
Geert Mul - the Netherlands
Frans De Winter – the Netherlands
Larisa Sjoerds - the Netherlands
Rik van Iersel - the Netherlands
Steve Moseley - United States of America
Ron Weijers - the Netherlands
Macha Mélanie & Karinne Granier
The Anatomy Lesson Revisited - Organization
Curator - Colin Rhodes- United Kingdom
Tactical Advisor - Marieta Reijerkerk - the Netherlands
Concept development - Ron Weijers, Frans de Winter and Larisa Sjoerds - the Netherlands
Graphic design - artifacts - Dordrecht - the Netherlands
The Anatomy Lesson Revisited' exhibition is projected to take place in 2023 - 2024
