Alex Margo Arden exhibition True as Good is on view until May 9th
Dear friends, I hope that you are doing well.
I am excited to share installation views of our current exhibition by Alex Margo Arden.
The exhibition was conceived in direct conversation with Dutch history and its local institutions. At its centre is a painting by Han van Meegeren - the infamous Dutch Golden Age forger whose fake "Vermeers" entered Nazi collections during World War II and who later recast his own deception as an act of resistance. Arden has re-authored and re-titled the work Authorised History (2026), folding herself into the same mechanisms of attribution and institutional legitimacy the painting already embodies. Elsewhere, the exhibition draws on two Amsterdam institutions: the Sexmuseum and Madame Tussauds, whose archival material appears in Flash I/II/III and Reproduction Prohibited respectively. These are not borrowed references - they are structural to the argument the show makes about how institutions allow morally compromised objects to keep circulating.
Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about the work!
Best regards,
Alex Margo Arden (b. 1994, Croydon, UK) lives and works in London. She uses theatrical methodologies to interrogate the production, interpretation, restoration, and restaging of histories. Through her research projects she often employs remaking and reperformance to question authority, authenticity, and labour. In 2025 she completed postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools. Her work is in the Arts Council Collection and the Royal Academy of Arts Collection.
Sands Muray-Wassink is part of Beyond the Manosphere – Masculinities Today at Stedelijk, Amsterdam
Opening Friday 17th of April
Sands Murray-Wassink’s ‘I'm Proud of Myself !’ from 1996 is one of the works to be included in the upcoming group exhibition ‘Beyond the Manosphere – Masculinities Today’, curated by Melanie Bühler, opening at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam on 17 April.
“What does it mean to be a man today? This question has become increasingly urgent with the rise of the ‘manosphere’, a loose network of online spaces where a brash, misogynistic masculinity is asserted that, to many, feels threatening. Fuelled by the spread of Trumpism, this brand of masculinity has become increasingly mainstream. The artworks in ‘Beyond the Manosphere – Masculinities Today’ explore masculinity as both an agent and performance of power, and as a lived reality that can be conflicting, banal, unsteady, and tender. They approach masculinity as a layered phenomenon, beyond dominant clichés.”
A publication will accompany the exhibition, with contributions from Hannah Black, Judith Butler, Asa Seresin, and Maurits de Bruijn, among others. The publication is designed by Sabo Day.
‘Beyond the Manosphere – Masculinities Today’ is organised by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and curated by Melanie Bühler, in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland, where the exhibition will travel.
