Blue Dots

In 1951, the government introduced a system that required museums to categorise their collections for evacuation in times of war. Using ‘evacuation dots,’ they indicated which works should be saved first: red stood for ‘very important,’ white for ‘important,’ and blue for ‘less important.’ Seventy-five years later, Blue Dots invites visitors to reflect on what truly matters, and on what we would want to preserve for the future at a crucial moment.

Curator Nadia Abdelkaui came across this system while researching the collection. ‘I was immediately interested by the choices that were made at the time. I wanted to place those ‘blue dots,’ once labeled as ‘less important,’ at the center.’ Blue Dots includes works by 19th-century artists such as Nola Hatterman, Jozef Israëls, and Thérèse Schwartze.

Cover image: Willem Martens, Rêve d’amour, circa 1892–1895 | Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam