Set design in three acts

In theatre history, stage design has often played a major, even defining role. This exhibition presents three visions on theatre design, centring around the 18th-century chamber theatre of Baron van Slingelandt, one of the highlights of the theatre collection that is now celebrating its centenary.
Nearly three centuries ago, this miniature stage was used in living rooms to demonstrate how theatre worked. The sets were the work of the set painters of Amsterdam’s city theatre at the time, of which nothing survives today due to a devastating fire. The chamber theatre has eight 18th-century and six 19th-century romantic backdrops.

Landscape as a stage
This small-scale version of a theatre, complete with sliding wing sets, inspired artists Arne Hendriks and Josef Zappe to create a replica. They explore the functionality of this miniature stage and link this to contemporary reality. Just as people pull the strings of stage sets, they do the same when shaping our natural environment. Arne Hendriks will regularly work in the exhibition room and enjoys engaging in conversation with visitors.*

A 3D view tour of the Stedelijk Museum in 1922
By the late 19th century, the rise of realism and modernism demanded a new approach to set design. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam responded with a major international exhibition on scenography, featuring eight rooms with new and often revolutionary ideas.
Architect H. Th. Wijdeveld (1885-1987) and designer Frits Lensvelt (1886-1945) played a key role in its realisation. Over several months, they worked tirelessly to fill the upper rooms of the museum with set, costume and theatre designs by approximately one hundred European and American artists.    
This section of the exhibition presents a reconstruction of that 1922 event. Several of the original designs are on display, along with a selection of (Asian) masks that Wijdeveld and Lensvelt borrowed from a museum in Leiden. A virtual 3D reconstruction has also been created, allowing visitors to walk through the exhibition as if they were there.

*See the calendar for times and dates, including upcoming workshops.

Baron van Slingelandt’s historic chamber theatre inspired contemporary artists Arne Hendriks and Josef Zappe to create a replica. Using the stage’s technical mechanisms, they open a dialogue about how people interact with the landscape. Throughout the exhibition period, Arne Hendriks will regularly be present, working in an open studio.
Arne Hendriks: “Just as people once literally pulled the strings of theatre sets, we now influence the design of our natural environment. We Dutch often see the landscape as a man-made machine.” On days when the artist is present, visitors are invited to operate the artists’ replica themselves and explore the mechanics behind the transformation of the scenes.

Realistically painted sets, as shown in Baron van Slingelandt’s chamber theatre, were the standard until around 1900. After that, a new era began in which architects, artists, and theatre-makers began experimenting. This was the start of the age of modern scenography. In 1922, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam organised a major international exhibition on stage design, featuring works by Hendrik Berlage (1856–1934), Henry van de Velde (1863–1957), and Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929). Hans van Keulen: “The 1922 exhibition was a revolutionary presentation that had a tremendous influence on theatre-makers in the Netherlands and abroad.”
In this third ‘act’, the Allard Pierson presents a virtual reconstruction of this groundbreaking exhibition, developed in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam’s 4D Research Lab. The reconstruction is complemented by a small selection of objects displayed initially in 1922, including several Asian masks that the curators at the time borrowed from the Royal Ethnographic Museum. Van Keulen: “With the help of the UvA’s 4D Lab, it is now possible to walk through this 1922 exhibition 103 years later. The exhibition itself was, in terms of design, a kind of stage set, and considered revolutionary for its time.”

De tentoonstelling is mede mogelijk gemaakt door VandenEnde Foundation, Gravin van Bylandt Stichting, Stichting Melanie, Stichting Kramer Lems en Fonds Podiumkunsten