Image: Opening Return to Rightful Owner - Eva Olthof 

4 September 2016 - 6 January 2017

We cordially invite you to the opening of the exhibition Return to Rightful Owner by Eva Olthof, which will take place on Sunday 4 September at 3 p.m. in the library of the Van Abbemuseum. 

In the new installation Return to Rightful Owner Eva Olthof invites visitors to think about the thin line between the privacy of reading and the public space of a library. She combines ideologically loaded texts on the facades of libraries with the politics of forgetting, remembering and citing. The starting point of the installation and the eponymous book is the complex political history of the American Memorial Library (Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek, AGB) in Berlin. This was the first American style “open access public library”, founded in the 1950s as a gift to the inhabitants of West Berlin. For the first time different sorts of literature were made available there for every layer of the society . Its location, right on the border of East Berlin, was also aimed to attract the inhabitants of the Russian part of the city. Eva Olthof’s installation forms a link between memories of the American Memorial Library and the individual, and raises questions about privacy and freedom today. 
This exhibition presents a new installation, which was created especially for the space of the Van Abbe library, together with materials linked to the publication. 

The exhibition is on view until 6 January 2017.

Hallo Cultuur!
The opening of this exhibition takes place during Hallo Cultuur!, the annual start of the new cultural season in Eindhoven. Admission to the entire museum is free that day and we organise several (free) activities. Check out the full programme online. 

Eva Olthof

Van Abbemuseum
Bilderdijklaan 10
5611 NH Eindhoven
The Netherlands