Stockholm: Recovering Rembrandt, discovering Moderna Museet
October 17, 2005 | 12:00am
Three weeks ago, my wife Karen and I embarked on our annual art excursion, which took us this time to Europe. Our journey began in a most extraordinary place – one of my favorite cities in the world, Stockholm.
Sweden does not usually figure into the art itinerant’s list of must-see destinations. It is off the usual tourist map – far removed, let’s say, from the philistine swarms that infest the Louvre just to take a quick photograph of the Mona Lisa.
Going to places where everybody else goes is really not our cup of tea; and you really do have to be quite serious about art to venture from Manila to what Stockholmers refer to as "The Capital of Scandinavia." (I’m sure the people of Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Reykjavik would have something to say about that.) But even as this was already my third visit to this gem on the Baltic, with its medieval bastions, baroque palaces and gothic revival edifices, the sheer number of art treasures to be had still never ceases to amaze.
There could not have been a more perfect reason to visit the Nationalmuseum, which is located on the city waterfront, across the late 18th century Royal Palace on Gamla Stan designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (said to have more rooms than London’s Buckingham). We joined guests on the first day of the exhibition The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Their Contemporaries, a show which was already a guaranteed blockbuster even before it opened – a success de scandale if there ever was one. Its popularity was cemented not by the quality of the works on show which, save for a few truly outstanding paintings and drawings, consisted of stale genre pieces and landscapes of interest only to researchers or specialists, but rather by the circumstances surrounding its star attraction, Rembrandt’s 1630 "Self-Portrait."
Talk about turning museum director Torsten Gunnarsson’s biggest nightmare into a made-for-Disney dream sequence – the timing of this whole episode was, in my mind, simply too perfect for words.
According to news that I gathered from museum visitors, local papers and the Net, this painting was stolen in December 2000 in a brazen armed heist, "which was done just five minutes before closing, when three masked men… walked into the museum and (at gunpoint) snatched the precious artworks as crowds of witnesses looked on." (In addition to the Rembrandt, two Renoirs were also stolen.)
It gets more exciting: "The three robbers threw spikes onto the road to slow the police chase and set several parked cars on fire before fleeing in a speedboat waiting for them outside the waterfront museum.
"Nine men were later handed heavy prison sentences in Sweden for their role in the theft, including a 47-year-old Swede currently serving eight years for masterminding the robbery."
Just last week, four men were arrested in Copenhagen through the combined efforts of the Swedish police and the FBI, which to my knowledge has a bureau dedicated to recovering stolen art. The men were caught in a buy-bust operation the week before we arrived in Stockholm, when they attempted to sell the work to an undercover agent for $200,000 – a paltry amount when compared to its current market value of $42 million.
The report continues: "The Rembrandt was the last of the three paintings to be recovered. Renoir’s "Conversation" was recovered in Stockholm in April 2001, by chance, during a drug investigation, while "Young Parisian" was found in the United States earlier this year."
Now how about that…Rembrandt’s "Self-Portrait" was returned to the Nationalmuseum just hours before we arrived at the museum and the exhibition opened – a show that, from my experience, would have had to be planned no less than a year before there was any inkling that the painting would ever be found at all!
Not surprisingly, the well turned-out guests paid extra-special attention to the small work measuring roughly 15x12 cm (little wonder it was so easy to hide for so long). A prisoner for its fame, the painting now finds itself behind a glass window with a special security detail.
Stockholm is also called the Venice of the North for good reason. It sits on a series of islands connected by bridges under which boats ranging from cruise ships to sailing yachts pass through to reach any one of over 24,000 charming outlying islands where many city dwellers retire to, particularly during midsummer holidays.
One of the islands that constitute the city, Skeppsholmen, is home to one of the world’s most important museums of modern art – the Moderna Museet. This museum holds an impressive collection of visual art by European and Swedish modern masters and contemporary trailblazers on the international circuit in an understated edifice constructed in 1998 according to designs by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo. Closed in 2001 due to certain problems in the buidling’s climate control system – an imperative when it comes to preserving cultural heritage – the museum only reopened last year under the direction of Lars Nittve.
I found the sequencing of the display very interesting in that it presented the historical development of themes in modern art in reverse chronology. Instead of falling upon the usual humdrum segue-way, what resulted was a considered appraisal of the impact of the art of the past from the perspective of the here and now, imparting a more dynamic flavor to the display. The comical activist videos of father and son Gerd Conradt and Felix Gmelin, for example, seemed altogether benign when seen in light of truly revolutionary, earlier films such as Un Chien Andalou (Andalucian Dog) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali – memorable for its opening scene wherein an eyeball is slit open with a blade in close-up – and excerpts from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
There is something about seeing exhibitions overseas which leaves me thinking every time about how certain artists living and working today are more successful than others in gaining the attention of curators. Although there were well-known talents like Tracey Moffat, Jenny Holzer, Gerhard Richter and Doris Salcedo, I’d never even read about, heard of, nor seen in the many major shows I’ve been to in recent years, the likes of the Brazilian Tunga or the Chilean Alfredo Jaar. And you can forget about finding any Philippine art here – in my unbiased opinion, clearly stronger than a lot of the stuff that I was seeing (more about this observation when I write about the Venice Biennale in a few weeks time). Somehow, we’d just simply disappeared from the radar.
Reflecting on the concept of postmodernist pluralism and the reassessment of historiographies of meaning at the Moderna Museet – particularly that contemporary art is not restricted to Western templates and is necessarily a global phenomenon – perhaps we could all be inspired by Rembrandt’s serendipitous recovery and create opportunities that would embrace Philippine art’s reemergence on the world stage.
The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Their Contemporaries is on view until Jan. 8, 2006 at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (+46 8 5195 4428). Opening hours Tuesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday, Friday, Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday closed.
Moderna Museet. Skeppsholmen, Stockholm (+46 8 5195 5200). Opening hours: Tuesday to Wednesday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday closed.
For your feedback, e-mail rlerma@ateneo.edu.
Sweden does not usually figure into the art itinerant’s list of must-see destinations. It is off the usual tourist map – far removed, let’s say, from the philistine swarms that infest the Louvre just to take a quick photograph of the Mona Lisa.
Going to places where everybody else goes is really not our cup of tea; and you really do have to be quite serious about art to venture from Manila to what Stockholmers refer to as "The Capital of Scandinavia." (I’m sure the people of Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Reykjavik would have something to say about that.) But even as this was already my third visit to this gem on the Baltic, with its medieval bastions, baroque palaces and gothic revival edifices, the sheer number of art treasures to be had still never ceases to amaze.
There could not have been a more perfect reason to visit the Nationalmuseum, which is located on the city waterfront, across the late 18th century Royal Palace on Gamla Stan designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (said to have more rooms than London’s Buckingham). We joined guests on the first day of the exhibition The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Their Contemporaries, a show which was already a guaranteed blockbuster even before it opened – a success de scandale if there ever was one. Its popularity was cemented not by the quality of the works on show which, save for a few truly outstanding paintings and drawings, consisted of stale genre pieces and landscapes of interest only to researchers or specialists, but rather by the circumstances surrounding its star attraction, Rembrandt’s 1630 "Self-Portrait."
Talk about turning museum director Torsten Gunnarsson’s biggest nightmare into a made-for-Disney dream sequence – the timing of this whole episode was, in my mind, simply too perfect for words.
According to news that I gathered from museum visitors, local papers and the Net, this painting was stolen in December 2000 in a brazen armed heist, "which was done just five minutes before closing, when three masked men… walked into the museum and (at gunpoint) snatched the precious artworks as crowds of witnesses looked on." (In addition to the Rembrandt, two Renoirs were also stolen.)
It gets more exciting: "The three robbers threw spikes onto the road to slow the police chase and set several parked cars on fire before fleeing in a speedboat waiting for them outside the waterfront museum.
"Nine men were later handed heavy prison sentences in Sweden for their role in the theft, including a 47-year-old Swede currently serving eight years for masterminding the robbery."
Just last week, four men were arrested in Copenhagen through the combined efforts of the Swedish police and the FBI, which to my knowledge has a bureau dedicated to recovering stolen art. The men were caught in a buy-bust operation the week before we arrived in Stockholm, when they attempted to sell the work to an undercover agent for $200,000 – a paltry amount when compared to its current market value of $42 million.
The report continues: "The Rembrandt was the last of the three paintings to be recovered. Renoir’s "Conversation" was recovered in Stockholm in April 2001, by chance, during a drug investigation, while "Young Parisian" was found in the United States earlier this year."
Now how about that…Rembrandt’s "Self-Portrait" was returned to the Nationalmuseum just hours before we arrived at the museum and the exhibition opened – a show that, from my experience, would have had to be planned no less than a year before there was any inkling that the painting would ever be found at all!
Not surprisingly, the well turned-out guests paid extra-special attention to the small work measuring roughly 15x12 cm (little wonder it was so easy to hide for so long). A prisoner for its fame, the painting now finds itself behind a glass window with a special security detail.
Stockholm is also called the Venice of the North for good reason. It sits on a series of islands connected by bridges under which boats ranging from cruise ships to sailing yachts pass through to reach any one of over 24,000 charming outlying islands where many city dwellers retire to, particularly during midsummer holidays.
One of the islands that constitute the city, Skeppsholmen, is home to one of the world’s most important museums of modern art – the Moderna Museet. This museum holds an impressive collection of visual art by European and Swedish modern masters and contemporary trailblazers on the international circuit in an understated edifice constructed in 1998 according to designs by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo. Closed in 2001 due to certain problems in the buidling’s climate control system – an imperative when it comes to preserving cultural heritage – the museum only reopened last year under the direction of Lars Nittve.
I found the sequencing of the display very interesting in that it presented the historical development of themes in modern art in reverse chronology. Instead of falling upon the usual humdrum segue-way, what resulted was a considered appraisal of the impact of the art of the past from the perspective of the here and now, imparting a more dynamic flavor to the display. The comical activist videos of father and son Gerd Conradt and Felix Gmelin, for example, seemed altogether benign when seen in light of truly revolutionary, earlier films such as Un Chien Andalou (Andalucian Dog) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali – memorable for its opening scene wherein an eyeball is slit open with a blade in close-up – and excerpts from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
There is something about seeing exhibitions overseas which leaves me thinking every time about how certain artists living and working today are more successful than others in gaining the attention of curators. Although there were well-known talents like Tracey Moffat, Jenny Holzer, Gerhard Richter and Doris Salcedo, I’d never even read about, heard of, nor seen in the many major shows I’ve been to in recent years, the likes of the Brazilian Tunga or the Chilean Alfredo Jaar. And you can forget about finding any Philippine art here – in my unbiased opinion, clearly stronger than a lot of the stuff that I was seeing (more about this observation when I write about the Venice Biennale in a few weeks time). Somehow, we’d just simply disappeared from the radar.
Reflecting on the concept of postmodernist pluralism and the reassessment of historiographies of meaning at the Moderna Museet – particularly that contemporary art is not restricted to Western templates and is necessarily a global phenomenon – perhaps we could all be inspired by Rembrandt’s serendipitous recovery and create opportunities that would embrace Philippine art’s reemergence on the world stage.
Moderna Museet. Skeppsholmen, Stockholm (+46 8 5195 5200). Opening hours: Tuesday to Wednesday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday closed.
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