Lina Bo Bardi: The Didactic Room brings forward two distinctive features from Lina Bo Bardi's practice, formal and free, and activates them in the context of the Van Abbemuseum. A sequence of three different installations on her famous glass panels is combined with an active program of relatively spontaneous activities, which will leave their residue on the surrounding walls. When Lina Bo Bardi presented the collection of MASP on glass she expressed the desire to free works of art from any established reading or judgement and gave space for new relations between them and the public. The panels on the back of the works in The Didactic Room, which in MASP showed her dedication to the didactic aspect of a museum, become a scripted, narrative space, generated along the duration of the exhibition. Combining the formal composition of the glass panels with the free space on the walls echo the inherent possibility in Lina Bo Bardi's work of joining opposites as well as her desire to offer space for what she calls "cultural citizenship, practised at its highest form". The first installation is a choice of works from the collection of the van Abbemuseum, which have a relation to Lina Bo Bardi's thoughts and practice. The Didactic Panels, a first stage in the development of the 'script' around these relationships, are made in collaboration with Grant Watson.



Installation view of Time Machines Reloaded, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 2010


Opening performance by Spartacus Chetwynd and team, Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 2010