Anna-Rosja Haveman (1993) graduated in Art History from the University of Groningen in August 2017 and barely a month later was able to start working at the Groninger Museum as co-curator of the LaChapelle exhibit: Good News For Modern Man. Not too shabby for your first job. She also runs her own gallery at home and produces all kinds of publications. How did she manage it and what does her job entail? “Working with David LaChapelle was inspiring, but also quite challenging at times.”
“With that job at the Groninger Museum, I was really lucky,” she says.
I DON'T BELIEVE THAT WAS PURE LUCK. HOW DID YOU END UP THERE?
“It really feels like being lucky that right after graduation I found a job that I really like. Like any student in the arts, I was nervous about finding work quickly and where I would end up. I had the idea for some time that I would enjoy working in a creative job at the museum, but it's not as if I was gunning for this position. I didn't know they were looking for someone. My thesis supervisor had dropped my name in a conversation with Andreas Blühm, the director of the Groninger Museum, and as a result I was offered my current job as assistant project manager just before I graduated."
YOUR NAME COMING UP MEANS PEOPLE ARE TAKING NOTICE.
“That's true, you have to take a lot of initiative in this field of work to make a name for yourself. During my studies I always worked hard, but mainly because I really enjoyed it. At the same time, I also started looking at what I could do myself to gain experience. From that enthusiasm, my roommate and fellow student Vanessa van 't Hoogt and I started the LivingGallery in our home.
Another example is that Vanessa and I were nominated by the lecturer of an elective course jointly organised by the University of Groningen and the Frank Mohr Institute to write the graduation catalogue for this year's graduation projects. In that course we also met interesting budding artists that we work with for the gallery. For example, Vanessa and I also visited studio openings at the Biotope to discover artists. So getting others to take notice was mostly a matter of putting a lot of time and energy into the things I enjoy doing most."
YOUR JOB AT THE GRONINGER MUSEUM IS CALLED PROJECT ASSISTANT, BUT YOU ARE ALSO CALLED CO-CURATOR. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I SHOULD BE IMAGINING. WHAT ARE YOUR DUTIES?
"Haha, I wondered that too when I was just starting out. Of course I already had experience with organising exhibits at my home. In that situation, it is clear what the project manager does — everything: contact with artists and the public, transporting the works, setting up the exhibit and explaining the art. At the Groninger Museum, of course, I couldn't do everything myself: there are teams who work on the various tasks.
As co-curator I am the right-hand woman of project leader Andreas Blühm. In the run-up to the opening I was given more and more responsibilities. It was my job to maintain an overview of the entire process and to communicate well with all internal and external teams. I also studied the artist and the works in order to write the information texts and the essay Seismic Shift, which I published together with Andeas Blühm, about the exhibit.
A fun task was sliding miniature prints of the artworks onto miniature walls to prepare the layout of the exhibition, before it was incorporated into a professional architectural programme. It was also new for me to write a grant application for the acquisition of the work Seismic Shift by LaChapelle for the Groninger Museum. I had no idea at first what that kind of application would look like, but it was accepted.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO WORK WITH A GREAT ARTIST LIKE DAVID LACHAPELLE?
“That was inspiring, but also quite a challenge at times. David LaChapelle is an established name and knows very well what he wants and also very well what he doesn't want. For example, at first he had trouble with the coloured walls in the Groninger Museum. Fortunately, he ended up being really excited when he saw how it turned out in person.”
WHAT IS YOUR MISSION IN YOUR WORK?
“The most important thing for me is to make what the artist wants to convey accessible to an audience. My bachelor’s was in Art, Culture and Media and the approach there is very theory-oriented: you take a theory as your basis and the work of art is an example to support that theory. In the Art History programme you learn to look more at artists and objects. This is how I like to work: in conversation with the artist I discover whether they emphasise the materiality of the work or approach it more from a socio-political or philosophical context. Starting artists are often still very much searching for their own vision. I like to help them gain more clarity about that by taking a personal approach to the work and asking targeted questions.”
YOUR JOB AS CO-CURATOR ENDS IN JUNE. WHAT WILL YOU DO NEXT?
“I don't yet know. I do have a few potentially in the works, but I have no idea where I'm going to end up. With the experience I've gained now, I'm sure it will be fine. My dream is to one day work as a curator at a major museum with the young artists I work with, who are also at the start of their careers. I think it would be fun to grow with each other.”
DO YOU MAKE YOUR OWN ART?
“I once thought of going to art school, but now I can't make my own art. My training has made me too critical and reflective. The other day I thought about what kind of artworks a fictitious artist would make on a certain subject. That's how much distance I apparently need from my theoretical and critical viewpoint when I want to create a work of art. But it can be done then: who knows what will come from my fictional alter ego someday?”