Amsterdam’s Stedelijk modern art museum, which reopens on Saturday after being closed for eight years, needs more money to be included in the world’s greatest galleries, several museum directors say in Thursday’s NRC.

‘The Stedelijk’s collection is among the most important in the world but it needs as much income as the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou and Moma to do it justice,’ Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York told the paper.
Rein Wolfs, director of Germany’s Fridericianum in Kassel said the Stedelijk risks becoming ‘uninteresting’ if it focuses on exhibitions aimed at drawing large crowds. It will then lose its status as being ‘interesting and influential,’ Wolfs is quoted as saying.
Council cash
Amsterdam city council will decide next week how much subsidy to give the Stedelijk next year. The city’s arts council has recommended a grant of €11.6m, €4m less than the museum had asked for in order to achieve its international ambitions.
This means the total budget for the Stedelijk is around €20m, compared with €154m for the Tate Modern and €84m for Moma, the paper says.
The eight-year expansion and renovation project, which cost €127m, was aimed at propelling the Stedelijk into the international museum elite.
Museum director Ann Goldstein told the paper the museum has to deal with ‘financial challenges’. ‘But if we keep aiming as high as we can, we get the best out of ourselves,’ she said. ‘The world will be our judge.’