AMSTERDAM.- The Stedelijk Museum expects to end the year with an estimated 695,000 visitors. A slight uptick compared to 2017, when 691,851 guests visited the Stedelijk. This year’s most popular exhibitions were STEDELIJK BASE, the new permanent installation of the collection initiated by former artistic director Beatrix Ruf, and the survey of Studio Drift, which drew an incredible 263,000 visitors, and therefore gave the museum the busiest summer in its history.

Jan Willem Sieburgh: “2018 was another good year for the Stedelijk. Being able to end the year with such excellent visitor figures inspires our confidence in the future. From surveys we conducted, we know our visitors appreciate the Stedelijk’s engaging, topical and diverse programming. I take that as a huge compliment.”

Program
2018 was a varied year, with mass-appeal exhibits such as the Studio Drift exhibition, the newly-restored Keith Haring velum, and stunning solos by Lily van der Stokker, Metahaven, Raquel van Haver, and others. Insights uncovered by new research into the Stedelijk collection provided the impetus for the exhibitions I Am a Native Foreigner, Amsterdam, the Magic Center and The Djaya Brothers. Each year, a great many new artworks join the Stedelijk Museum’s collection, most of which are gifts. Jump into the Future and True Luxury… invited art lovers to experience these riches. The acquisitions from the exhibition Freedom of Movement will be announced early next year.

Upcoming in 2019
With the announcement of the new Supervisory Board the museum is poised to enter a new phase in 2019, where the focus lies on appointing a new director. We have a wide-ranging exhibition program planned for 2019, with retrospectives by Jacqueline de Jong and Maria Lassnig, the re-enactment of the recently acquired Tino Seghal work This Variation, and exhibitions that tie in with today’s events and spotlight the art of Ad van Denderen, Walid Raad and Carlos Amorales. 2019’s must-see exhibition is Migrant Art in Paris 1900-1950, which showcases work by celebrated artists such as Chagall, Mondrian, Picasso and Van Dongen, alongside art by lesser-known names. Those artists lived in what to them was a new world: a polarised society, teeming with religious and ethnic tensions.