When Emilie Gordenker took over the Van Gogh museum in February, she did not expect her tenure to begin with months of closure. Yet it is only now that the museum welcomes it first visitors, almost three months since lockdown began.
“We’ve waited eleven weeks for this moment,” said Gordenker, “It’s fantastic that we can reopen on such a radiant day.” Not a handshake in sight for the crowd, Gordenker instead walked up and down the queue explaining how to use the new automatic hand sanitizer dispensers the museum has been equipped with.
Prior to the pandemic, the museum would welcome some 6,000 visitors a day, now they are fortunate if they are able to cater to ten per cent of this in a six-hour day. “It is going to feel slow,” Gordenker noted, “We’re used to having so many more visitors here, but we have to be careful and do what we can.”
Ironically, when Gordenker was appointed to her new position, the NRC Handelsblad, chose the headline “It Will Never Be Quiet in the Museum Again.” One wonders if they were tempting fate.
A month into lockdown, Gordenker said in an interview: “We do disaster scenarios and the ones I was more prepared for were flooding or fire,” she continued, “But a pandemic like this with a complete shutdown of the economy? No one has ever seen it before, and I don’t think anyone saw it coming.”
In a more positive turn than one might expect during a pandemic, Gordenker concludes: “Now we are reorienting towards our Dutch public. A lot of people here thought that the Van Gogh Museum is for tourists. That was a matter of perception that we need to change.”
