Seeking Senior Curator, Exhibitions and Time-Based Practices

The Van Abbemuseum invites applications for Senior Curator, Exhibitions and Time-Based Practices. We seek an experienced curator to develop ambitious exhibitions and deepen the museum’s engagement with live and time-based art, connecting its collection with contemporary practices.

Founded in 1936, the museum holds more than 3,600 artworks, a library of approximately 140,000 volumes, and special archives. As a municipally funded institution, it carries a public responsibility to safeguard these resources, make them accessible, and support art’s engagement with technological, ecological, and political questions.

We commission, collect, and present art as a method of inquiry, exploring how people might live, (un)learn, and move together. Artists contribute both to exhibitions and to the museum’s ways of working. Our engagement with Eindhoven’s innovation and design ethos accompanies an inquiry into time, collective experience, and the museum’s relationship with diverse publics.

Role
Working with the Director and all teams involved in exhibition making and collection management, you will work on major exhibitions, collection displays, commissions, performances, and research within a coherent curatorial programme. You will move between projects with broad public resonance and experimental formats.

You approach the collection as a possible repertoire: a field of relationships, histories, voices, scores, and movements, grounded in respect for individual works. You understand how duration, repetition, sound, and dramaturgy shape relationships between artworks, architecture, and audiences.

This work may involve sonic archives, choreography, embodied knowledge, or the museum’s in-house choir, which responds to collection works, interprets archival material, and develops commissioned repertoire. You combine intellectual ambition with practical delivery and stewardship.

Key responsibilities
–Develop solo and group exhibitions, commissions, and collection presentations of national and international relevance, reaching specific, yet also broad audiences.
–Lead curatorial research, identifying histories and connections that inform exhibitions, acquisitions, publications, and collection policy.
–Develop interdisciplinary projects involving sound, performance, and other time-based practices, building on existing daily scores and recurring formats.
–Work with conservation and collections management colleagues, artists, and rights holders to establish conditions for presentation, re-performance, and adaptation.
–Contribute to acquisitions with attention to provenance, documentation, rights, resources, and long-term care.
–Develop partnerships and touring projects, considering accessibility, conservation, and environmental impact.
–Maintain professional networks, support fundraising, and communicate research clearly, ensuring transparency and curatorial independence.

How we work
Research, education, mediation, and communication inform projects from the outset. We value shared authorship while recognising distinct professional responsibilities.

Exhibitions may function as scores, with elements activated within agreed curatorial and conservation parameters. Living practices contribute to institutional life; collecting them requires separate consideration of rights, documentation, care, and continuity.

We examine how technology, information infrastructures, and ecological systems shape artistic production. Experimentation is paired with accessibility, evaluation, and institutional care.

Your profile
–An advanced degree in art history or a related field.
–At least five years of senior-level experience developing exhibitions, collection projects, or artistic programmes in museums or comparable institutions.
–Broad knowledge of modern and contemporary art and demonstrable expertise in time-based practices.
–Experience producing live projects, commissioning artists, and developing exhibitions at different scales.
–An ability to engage critically with transnational histories and complex historical legacies.
–An established professional network and experience in project leadership, fundraising, policy development, and acquisitions.
–A sound understanding of collection stewardship and museum ethics.
–Fluency in Dutch and English, both written and spoken.
–Willingness to relocate to Eindhoven if not already based in the city, and to work on site.

Values and commitment
We value collaboration, accessibility, curiosity, and care for different forms of knowledge. We seek a colleague who approaches the collection’s future possibilities with attention to its histories and preservation.

Interested?
Submit your application by November 15 via the link on our website.