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Stedelijk Museum Review

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Stedelijk Museum

Address: Post CS-building, Oosterdokskade 5, 2nd and 3rd fl., Old City Center, Amsterdam
Phone: 020/573-2911
www.stedelijk.nl

Municipal Museum

Category: Museums/Galleries
Location: Museum District

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Fodor's Review:

Hot and happening modern art has one of the world's most respected homes at the Stedelijk, normally situated in a wedding-cake Neo-Renaissance structure built in 1895. Until the end of 2009, the museum is undergoing a massive refurbishment and the addition of a new wing by globally acclaimed local architects Benthem/Crouwel. Call ahead or check the Web site to be directed to the Stedelijk's many exhibitions in temporary spaces (more on this below). After World War II the Stedelijk rapidly collected more than 100,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints, as well as photography, graphic design, applied arts, and new media. Works by 20th-century modernists such as Chagall, Cézanne, Picasso, Monet, and Malevich live alongside the vast post-War melange of CoBrA—including Appel and Corneille; American Pop artists like Warhol, Johns, Oldenburg, and Liechtenstein; abstract Expressionists such as de Kooning and Pollock; and contemporary German Expressionists including Polke, Richter, and Baselitz. Displays of Dutch essentials like de Stijl school (including the amazing Red Blue Chair that Gerrit Rietveld designed in 1918, and Mondriaan's 1920 Composition in Red, Black, Yellow, Blue, and Grey) are complemented by large retrospectives or themed programs, featuring current hotshots on the art scene.

Until the summer of 2008, the Stedelijk is in a surprising temporary location near Centraal Station: the TPG Post CS building (Oosterdokskade 5). Thanks to the hip café-bar-restaurant 11 (11th fl. 020/625-5999. www.ilove11.nl) and many experimental groups next door, the Stedelijk has "fallen with its nose in the butter," as the Dutch saying goes. The TPG site has breathtaking views of the city and a hopping club scene that attracts Europe's artistic vanguard. At the end of 2009, you'll again be able to admire the Stedelijk's new home at its original location on Paulus Potterstraat 13 in Museum District.

Cost: EUR 12.50
Open: Daily 10-6

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