Van Abbemuseum's "Museum as Sundial" Reworks Its 1936 Building as a Tool for Orientation

Eleven artists and designers feature in Museum as Sundial, a reorientation of the Van Abbemuseum that treats the sundial — among the oldest technologies humans have used to find direction — as a means of orienting the present. The exhibition spans sculpture, film, architecture, videogame design, sound, performance and live-action role-play, and is supplemented by special loans from archives and collections. Its organizing question is how a museum can help visitors locate direction amid profound change. The point of departure is the museum's original 1936 building, conceived in dialogue with the sun. Returning to that founding logic, the museum itself becomes a sundial: the central gallery serves as a point of orientation, while the other galleries act as vectors linking artworks to Eindhoven and beyond, reaching backwards toward archaeology. The project is on view at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.