Bart Drost

Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen conceived the plan to annually invite an artist, under the name 'Kunstluis' ('Art lous'), to respond 'like a louse in the fur' to the collection and/or the museum with short-term interventions. The artist receives carte blanche. Content and timing are entirely up to him/her. Everything in and around the museum can be a reason to intervene: current exhibitions, objects from the collection, news about the museum, ideas about presenting art, et cetera.

In 2020 Bart Drost will provide the first edition interventions, in which he will put the different aspects of 'exhibiting art in the museum' in a new light. The immediate reason for the recurring Kunstluis was Drost's unannounced installation "Mind your step" last year, which surprised many visitors and employees of the museum.

The imaginary triptych

The closure due to the measures regarding the Covid 19 virus meant that the last Intervention 'Kunstluis maakt het bont' could not be accessible to the public. However, in consultation with The Museum, it was decided to allow this seventh Intervention to take place, albeit that visitors could not visit the Museum in person, but were digitally guided to this website where all the Interventions can be seen in their full glory.

A final Intervention behind closed doors was experienced as very bare. Therefore, by way of farewell greeting, an 'Art louse and the Christmas thought'.

Three works of art that seem to stand in sharp contrast to the words of light and peace usual uttered at Christmas, form the starting point for this Christmas thought.These three works are set up separately in The Museum, but as an imaginary triptych they exchange ideas about where playing ceases to be play and turns into battle.The spectator is invited to join in this conversation and give free rein to his.

One intervention is not the other. Sometimes an intervention is so minor that you cannot actually speak of a real intervention. Then again the intervention is so extensive that it looks more like a mini exhibition. In recent months, during the hours that the museum was not open to the public, and sometimes casually during opening hours, Kunstluis has carried out a number of small guerrilla campaigns in various places in The Museum, which have not (yet) been made public.

In Intervention 7, all these guerrilla actions will be reviewed by way of 'grande finale' from 10 to 15 November 2020.

From the very beginning, Bart Drost has been annoyed by the plinths in Het Museum. Sometimes the skirting boards are formed by "gaps", at other times they are "edges". It's a mishmash. In any case, they are disturbing elements.

At Intervention 6, he turns his head and enjoys the same ugly plinths: he arranges fourteen plinth slits as small shop windows and displays objects and trinkets that inspire him, and he makes mini-presentations of earlier work.

The exhibition can be viewed through binoculars or on your knees for Arts sake. Make it a family spectacle ...

seven bullets hit!
In 2019 Museum Het Valkhof acquired a beautiful wooden statue of Saint Sebastian. Unfortunately, the picture is not complete. Exactly what makes Sebastian Saint Sebastian is missing. Nevertheless, the statue is now showing off in the beautiful room "Nijmegen and the Middle Ages" of the museum. You could say more naked than naked.

Kunstluis decided to restore the statue in honor at its 5th Intervention. He also immediately invited 6 fellow artists to come and do an intervention in the room: Marcel Bors, Pim Steinmann, Joos van der Zanden, Ans Verdijk, Frank Ter Beek, Hanneke van Broekhoven.

mind your step

Time and circumstance repeatedly appear to have a major influence on the experience of a work of art and the impact that work of art has.

If in 2012 a work by Bart Drost is refused by the CEAC in Xiamen because of its "subversive and controversial nature", he responds with placing the artwork mind your step at CEAC: Watch your language!

In 2019, Drost mind will use your step on its own initiative and in an adapted version at the staircases of Museum Het Valkhof, which many consider impassable: Watch out, don't fall!

In the first week of July 2020, Kunstluis will give the message mind your step out loud through the museum rooms, remembering the call regarding the corona policy: Watch out, keep your distance!

Already on the first day that Kunstluis has drawn up his Intervention 4 - Bart Drost's installation mind your step - in the museum, angry visitors complain about the volume of the megaphones and the tempo at which the texts follow each other. It even goes so far that a visitor switches off the megaphones with his own hands. In order not to run the risk that Intervention 4 should unexpectedly be stopped prematurely, Kunstluis was forced to work on the installation specially adapted for this presentation.
So as of Wednesday, July 8, the message mind your step no longer sounded as loud as the artist wanted and the lyrics could be heard at greater intervals. Those who visited the museum with a visit and who thought 'what a tame installation': they were absolutely right. Kunstluis invited them through a wall text to reinforce this weakened installation by loudly saying "MIND YOUR STEP!".

art lous confesses

When the museums were allowed to open their doors again on 1 June 2020 - after the obligatory corona closure - it was buzzing with action, discontent and disbelief. The Black Lives Matter movement loudly denounced the frameworks within the relations and power relations.

Museum Het Valkhof announced its new presentation as a "feel good" exhibition?

I thought it was an empty and inappropriate gesture at the time and I craved a sound of involvement from the museum. In my role as Kunstluis I wanted to take action! When I told my action contribution - in a movie I tell a childhood memory while I painted my face black face - I did not show any harm to friends with the remark 'this is entering the museum' I was strongly advised against: "This is possible today the day really isn't, Bart ". So I decided not to include this intervention in the series of the museum, but to put it on my website. Because I do not fully understand the commotion about it.

visual art doesn't need a museum

Musing during one of his many walks through the Ooypolder, Kunstluis came to the philosophical thought "art does not need a museum". He intended to put this text on the outside wall at the entrance of Museum Het Valkhof as of 1 June 2020 - the day the museums will be open to the public again - as part of Intervention 3. To underline and celebrate the independence of the visual arts.He intended to put this text on the outside wall at the entrance of Museum Het Valkhof as of 1 June 2020 - the day the museums are open to the public again - as part of Intervention 3. In order to underline and celebrate the independence and resilience of the visual arts.

The museum was not amused to this intention so Kunstluis decided to refrain from this intervention, with pain in his heart.


Inspired by and using the painting with the red dragon and the knight, which is located on the wall of the museum, Kunstluis nevertheless still portrayed Intervention 3 through filmic adaptation.

Art louse as Eastern bunny !
Museums are judged on visitor numbers and do the craziest things to get young and old in.
Kunstluis conceived as Easter activity for Museum het Valkhof: 'the egg hunt'. Works from the depot and colorful nits of his own hand exhibited between the art in the museum rooms.

Due to the corona virus the museum will be closed untul Junu 1st, so this second intervention will only be available virtual.

From the museum depot
In the run-up to Intervention 2, Kunstluis went looking for 'art with an egg' in the museum depot. Only 3 works were found there: 1 print, 2 glass egg cups and 1 small ivory box in the shape of an egg. 2 Egg works from Roman times are permanently on display in the museum.

The first intervention stems from the displeasure of the Kunstluis that exhibition space in the museum is not always fully utilized. "It's crazy to see that the print room at Museum Het Valkhof has been empty for two months ..." says Drost, "... as if there is not a depot with countless works of art, as if there are not hundreds of artists in the city who present a beautiful presentation in want to (and can) make this space ".

That is why the Kunstluis squattered this space during its first intervention and made it available to colleagues Elvira Duives and Tonni van Sommeren. The hijacking of the print room is a message to all museums to fill in all corners and gaps. Drost's first intervention took place on Tuesday 3 to Sunday 8 March 2020.

In 2020 Bart Drost was the first Valkhof Kunstluis.
In that position he performed 7 (and more) interventions in the museum. This booklet provides an overview of all interventions.
With photos and background information.

Text in Dutch.

issued in 2020
full color digiprint
136 pages, perfect bound
Euro 15.00

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