Emilie Gordenker, director of the Van Gogh Museum, will be the final guest of Istanbul Modern’s “Museums Talk” program this year, an initiative that has brought leading museum professionals from around the world together with art lovers since 2012.
Organized in collaboration with the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Istanbul, the event will take place at 7 p.m. on Oct. 27 at the Istanbul Modern Auditorium. Gordenker will deliver a talk titled “Quality Over Quantity: A New Strategic Direction.”
Gordenker, who has led the Van Gogh Museum since February 2020, will discuss the museum’s origins and the strategic approach it has pursued since 2021.
The talk is free and open to all art lovers, with simultaneous interpretation provided during the event.
Established through an agreement between Vincent van Gogh’s heirs and the Dutch government, the Van Gogh Museum opened in Amsterdam in 1973. Home to more than 200 of the artist’s paintings, around 500 drawings, hundreds of letters and works by other artists, the museum also serves as an international research center dedicated to Van Gogh’s life and work.
Alongside its permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum runs educational programs that explore Van Gogh’s work in the context of his contemporaries. It also conducts scholarly research into the artist’s life, working methods and artistic output.
The museum’s main building, designed by Gerrit Rietveld, was expanded in 1999 with an exhibition wing by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa. A new entrance building, designed to integrate with the surrounding Museumplein, was completed in 2015.
After earning her undergraduate degree at Yale University, Gordenker completed a doctorate in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. She has held positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection and the Netherlands Institute for Art History.
Gordenker served as director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague from 2008 to 2020, leading a major renovation project at the historic museum. She took over as director of the Van Gogh Museum in February 2020 and has played a key role in shaping its strategic direction.
