For the 10th consecutive year Museum Van Loon organizes an opera in it’s Canal House Garden: The Bear, an opera composed by Sir William Turner Walton (1902 – 1983). The Bear was first performed in the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh on june 3th 1967. Artists are Martijn Cornet (bariton), Rosanne van Sandwijk (mezzosopraan) and Jeroen Sarphati (pianist) Director: Jeroen Sarphati.

The concert will take about 45 minutes. After the performance people can enjoy a drink and a stroll through the beautiful garden. The house itself can also be visited.

Playing dates:
Wednesday August 21, 17:00 and 19:30
Thursday August 22, 17:00
Friday August 23, 17:00 and 19:30
Saturday August 24,17:00 and 19:30
Sunday August 25, 17:00 and 19:30

Ticketprice: €18.-
You can buy your tickets via the Grachtenfestival www.grachtenfestival.nl. Ticket sales starts around June 20th. Tickets are limited so order tickets on time.

From October 5th, 2013 until January 20th, 2014 Museum Van Loon will host the contemporary art exhibition Suspended Histories. This exhibition has as departure point the relationship between family Van Loon and the Dutch East India Company in the 17th and 18th centuries. Willem van Loon was co-founder of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602 and for many generations family members held high positions at the VOC.

For this exhibition the museum has invited guest curator Thomas Berghuis (1973, Amsterdam), who is a researcher and specialist of Asian art and recently appointed curator of Chinese art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The title Suspended Histories indicates that history is a dynamic process and that it’s not passive or static. History is never finished, but is, you might say, continuously 'postponed', or rather ‘suspended’ – in time and in space. The way history finds it’s form, the way it is being analyzed and judged, depends on contemporary discourse. Never completed and constantly evolving history is the starting point for the exhibition.

For Suspended Histories a number of internationally well known artists, from areas which The Netherlands traded with at the time of the VOC and who in their art practice strongly relate to the exhibition concept, have been asked to produce or select work for Suspended Histories.
Artists have been invited to investigate the museum collection and its historical context, in relation to the past, including their own. They have been asked to explore in what ways history lives on on and how can it be visualized in relation to the museum and to their own existence and background. Theme’s closely linked to both the museum and the artists, such as homeland, cultural identity, migration, assimilation and displacement, will be recurrent in Suspended Histories. Colonialism and slavery - nowadays considered largely concealed pages in history - are also aspects that are inseparably connected to the VOC and therefore to the Van Loon’s and that will be delt with in the art works.

Participating artists in Suspended Histories are: Tiong Ang (1961, Indonesia, currently living in Amsterdam), Arahmaiani (1961, Indonesia, currently living in Yogyakarta), Symrin Gill (1959, Singapore, currently living both in Sydney and Port Moresby, Maleisia), Ni Haifeng (1964, China, currently living in Amsterdam), Newell Harry (1972, Australia, currently living in Sydney), Yee I-Lann (1971, Maleisia, currently living in Kuala Lumpur, Maleisia), Mella Jaarsma (1960, Emmeloord, currently living in Yogyakarta), Donna Ong (1978, Singapore, currently living in Singapore), Lisa Reihana (1964, New-Zealand, currently living in Auckland, New-Zealand), Fiona Tan (1966, Indonesia, currently living in Amsterdam) and Titarubi (1968, Indonesia, currently living in Yogyakarta).