EINDHOVEN.- From 1 January 2015 Ulrike Erbslöh, currently business and deputy director of the Van Abbemuseum, will become deputy director of the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen / Basel Switzerland. Over the past eight years, Ulrike Erbslöh, together with director Charles Esche, has managed to position the Van Abbemuseum as the most experimental contemporary art museum in the Netherlands. She has also helped to give shape to a comprehensive institutional renewal of the museum. In the next period the museum will look for a suitable successor.

Mary-Ann Schreurs, alderman of innovation and design, sustainability and culture in Eindhoven: “"It will not be easy to replace Ulrike. She is the great silent power behind the museum. And behind much more here in Eindhoven. We can congratulate Fondation Beyeler and we are very happy that, despite her departure, she will continue to be involved in the city.”

Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum: “Ulrike has made a unique and lasting contribution to the Van Abbemuseum. She has been tirelessly imaginative in dealing with everything that the last eight years have thrown at the museum and has been instrumental in shaping a new policy for what a museum can be in the 21st century, a development of which this city and the country should be proud. That achievement is recognised by her prestigious appointment as managing director of the Fondation Beyeler, one of the leading modern art collections in the world. I am going to miss Ulrike very much; we have been a close and effective team for so long. Yet, I understand her need to seek new challenges and I know I speak from all the museum when I wish her the very best of luck in her new role. For the Van Abbemuseum, Ulrike's departure opens a new chapter. The decoupling from the city council is underway and it will bring new possibilities and demands. At the same time, art itself is changing again and the solutions of the past will not meet the needs of the future. We will look for a new balance in the next months and I am delighted that Ulrike will work together with the whole team to find the best way to forge the next steps, radical and unexpected as they must be.”