Rijks Museum, Amsterdam

International Exhibitions

From the 25th April to September 7th, 2014, British writers and philosophers Alain de Botton & John Armstrong will be showing what art can mean to visitors to the Rijksmuseum. And not so much from an art-historical point of view, but focusing rather on the therapeutic effect that art can have and the big questions in life that art can answer. In the exhibition Art is Therapy, De Botton (1969) and Armstrong (1966) will be commenting on 150 artworks on display in the Rijksmuseum galleries, from the Middle Ages right through to the 20th century, including the Asian Pavilion, but also on objects in the shop, café, cloakroom and entrance. They have also selected approx. 40 prints from the Rijksmuseum Print Room. The text boards have been designed by Irma Boom and added to the museum’s original ones. De Botton and Armstrong believe that these new captions shed an entirely new light on the Rijksmuseum collection. This exhibition will be the first time that the philosophers put their theories from their latest book Art as Therapy into practice. For more information, see here.