In April, the De Pont Museum in the Netherlands announced that Maria Schnyder will serve as its new director. De Pont is a famous Dutch museum of modern art, located in a former mill in Tilburg. The museum’s collection is built around living artists, emphasizing the quality of the work above any other medium. Schnyder joined De Pont in 2013 and spent the last four years as deputy director, meaning he takes over an institution whose daily rhythms he already knows intimately. The Observer recently caught up with him to discuss his new role and the unique challenges of running an institution with a strong artist-first tradition.
Your predecessor, Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, came with decades of experience abroad at the Stedelijk and the ICA—the usual route of external recruitment. What advantages do you see in climbing from the inside rather than from the outside?
I have worked very closely with Martijn, and I am deeply invested in and fully support the direction in which the museum has been evolving. I can ensure continuity as it is—important in the case of the De Pont Museum and its long-term relationship with artists—while also having a clear and important understanding of where its untapped potential lies and how, with a small but decisive movement, we can take it to the next level.
The De Pont Museum has 7,000 square meters of exhibition space, yet the entire organization is limited to only 18 full-time employees. This requires synchronization and alignment: it must work like a well-oiled machine to be able to achieve international level shows and ambitions.
In announcing the appointment, board chairman Taco Dibbits described De Pont’s first dedication to the artist as especially urgent “in an era when public and audience-driven agendas continue to set the tone for the museum field.” That reads like a slight to what your peers are doing right now. Do you care about him too?
I don’t think it was intended as a criticism, but as a reflection of the special position of the De Pont Museum. The foundation is financially independent, allowing the museum to put artists first without being tied to other programs. Rita McBride once described the De Pont Museum as “an artist’s dream”—and that’s exactly what we strive for. It doesn’t always make a museum the easiest place for visitors, but it makes it a unique place to experience an artist’s practice in its most unstructured way.
Instead of contradicting other approaches in the field, it is about realizing that the De Pont Museum represents a model that is no longer visible, and therefore, still very necessary in today’s cultural and political context. It’s a model I’m willing to take forward.
The former Thomas de Beer wool mill that houses the De Pont Museum has an almost mythical status in the museum-architecture conversation—by some accounts, it helped shape the thinking behind Tate Modern. Dibbits cited “your strong relationship” with the space in his statement. For a caregiver, what does structure make easy, and where does it complicate matters?
The building has a unique patina, and its spaces are very different from the usual gallery rooms. They range from 12 small cabins—one with two doors, originally designed to ventilate the stored wool—to a large central hall measuring 35 by 35 meters, which once housed large wool spinning machines.
It has an open floor plan with long lines, meaning everything is connected. There is no possibility of creating closed circuits; temporary exhibitions and collective exhibitions are an inevitable part of the visitor’s experience. I tend to think of a rhythmic sequence in different places rather than separate chapters. For each exhibition, we choose galleries that match the works we want to show, which means that the exhibition routes are never the same.
Over the years, I have learned the various ways in which architecture can provide art, and where it can be at its most beautiful. Most of all, I have learned to accept you as a friend. Once you internalize its cadence, it becomes a unique playground, challenging artists in the best way to rethink what is really important in the presentation of their work and inviting them to discover an unprecedented space.
Your academic background is mixed—French literature and languages with art history in Fribourg, then a research master in Groningen. Linguists and compilers do not always work with the same tools. Has the literary and linguistic side of your training entered your caregiving practice?
Certainly, even though it’s as big as a kind of basic foundation there is something that translates into an open discourse. Linguistics made me understand how language reflects the world and structures how we experience it, and how different languages and cultures draw information in different ways.
In books, I learned the importance of staying hard. It has instilled in me an inherent sense of reward for living with jobs that don’t pay off immediately, but require constant effort and attention. That understanding carried over into my curatorial practice.
Where do you see De Pont’s position within the regional space, and the wider Dutch museum space, where big names and budgets reside in the Randstad? Or is your goal to plan for the wider art world?
The De Pont Museum is a destination museum—a place for those willing to make the effort to experience modern art on the artist’s terms, within a unique architectural setting. In terms of regionalism, I think we need to go beyond the Randstad-versus-province concept and promote a truly international concept. Tilburg is as close to Brussels and Düsseldorf as it is to Amsterdam. That local reality should be reflected in the way we think and act as an institution.
Hendrik Driessen has set the philosophy of a collection of depth and breadth—follow a small number of artists over many years, find important works within a body of work, skip the method of putting everything together. What are the benefits of this strategy? What are your favorite pieces from the collection?
The collection does not have a predetermined focus on artistic expression, public discourse, geographical origin or thematic orientation. It’s about bringing together contemporary voices that resonate, reframe and challenge. Personally, I tend to think of it as a meeting around a long table. When I think about continuing to develop the collection, I imagine conversations between artists who are already thriving, those who call for new momentum and those who have yet to emerge. And from time to time, this evolving star needs a voice that resists its existing order, instead disrupting and disrupting it. In any case, inviting a new artist to join a collective shows a long-term commitment to their practice.
The collection’s philosophy of depth and breadth is a direct result of De Pont’s original approach to the artist. By following the artist’s work over time and creating a logical theme, the museum is able to convey its situation with certainty and ambiguity. In cluster displays, this results in a more focused viewing experience.
Focusing on depth has, over the years, resulted in many unique ensembles that distinguish our collection. I think of Thomas Schütte, for example, a personal favorite, too Grosser Respekt as a complete work of art. But also recently discovered work groups, for example, Ragnar Kjartansson and Laure Prouvost without doubt of international importance.
De Pont remains a privately funded foundation built on Jan de Pont’s estate, with no government funding for the building. With public budgets under pressure across Europe, that independence looks increasingly like an asset. What kind of benefits does this program offer your institution? Is America doing it right by giving our museums basically no public money?
I think it is very tricky to compare the European and American situations, but in reality, I believe that public art centers should be part of the core infrastructure of the country. In the case of the De Pont Museum, from the beginning it was a matter of cooperation that the foundation did not apply for public funding. The idea was that if, as a private foundation, you add something to the existing institutional environment, then you should not take out existing public funds, but be able to support your position.
Today, that financial independence allows us to remain fully committed to the artist’s original work and to carry it forward into the future. At the same time, it requires a clear sense of direction and sharp focus. As already mentioned, the organization has no power, and the museum focuses on solo exhibitions made in collaboration with artists. There is no ability to conduct academic research or publication programs. Our acquisition budget is fixed, and each choice has a consequence: to choose one activity is to sacrifice another. So while De Pont enjoys complete independence, it is within a clearly defined financial framework that requires discipline and a strong sense of focus.
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