Works by Fiona Tan, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré and Efrat Zehavi together with books in new exhibition at House of the Book
On June 29, Huis van het boek opens the exhibition All the Knowledge of the World, featuring works by Fiona Tan, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré and Efrat Zehavi, alongside historical masterpieces from the museum’s collection. The exhibition explores humanity’s drive to collect knowledge, combining seminal books such as Avicenna’s Liber canonis medicinae, the Liber chronicarum, and Diderot’s Enlightenment landmark, the Encyclopédie, with contemporary art.
Why does humankind seek to gather all the knowledge of the world—and what does that say about us? Influential books from the past inevitably change in meaning over time. In dialogue with the works of Tan, Bruly Bouabré and Zehavi, the museum invites visitors to revisit these questions.
Influential books in dialogue with leading artists
The works of artists Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Fiona Tan and Efrat Zehavi demonstrate that it is not only writers who grapple with the idea of collecting knowledge. Between medieval manuscripts and Diderot’s Encyclopédie are drawings by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, one of Africa’s most celebrated contemporary artists. In 2022, MoMA New York presented a major retrospective of his work. After a vision, Bouabré devoted himself to the task of gathering all the world’s knowledge.
Among the museum’s antiquities, visitors will encounter new works by Efrat Zehavi, created especially for this exhibition through research into the museum’s collection. Her work reflects on the body as a vessel of knowledge and experience. Zehavi’s art is also prominently featured at the recently opened FENIX Museum of Migration and Art in Rotterdam.
Fiona Tan’s film Archive (2019) highlights the fascinating ambition of the Mundaneum, an early 20th-century institution that set out to collect and organize all the world’s knowledge. A visionary “paper internet,” it was structured according to the Universal Decimal Classification. Tan will also present her exhibition Monomania in Amsterdam from July 4, for which the Rijksmuseum granted her carte blanche to make a personal selection from its collection.
Myths and possibilities
Running alongside All the Knowledge of the World is the exhibition Myths and Possibilities. Beyond the Boundaries of Reality, on view at Huis van het boek until February 1st.
Beeld:
* Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum, Neurenberg, Anton Koberger, 23 dec. 1493 Coll. Huis van het boek. Foto: The Book Photographer
* Avicenna, Canon medicinae handschrift, Frankrijk, 1283. Coll. Huis van het boek Foto: The Book photographer
* Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Connaissance du monde, 1991-2003. Pen en potlood op papier. Coll. Tanya Rumpff - Kunstkamer de Grutmolen, Zutphen. Foto: The Book Photographer
