For 75 years, the Jan van Eyck Academie has been welcoming artists, designers, curators, architects, writers, and other creatives to Maastricht. Starting off in 1948 as an academy for higher education rooted in Catholic tradition, the Jan van Eyck has known a long history of successive developments.
The academy’s focus began shifting in the 1970s, when fixed curriculums were dropped and its programme made room for more autonomous artistic practices. Having introduced a workspace for time-based media in the 1980s, the Jan van Eyck started gaining international recognition.
During the 1990s, the academy redefined itself as an international multidisciplinary post-academic institute for practical experimentation and research in the field of visual culture. Over the following decade, the institute’s Theory department took a prominent role, and in 2013, after a major renovation of the building, the “Van Eyck” reappeared as an outward-looking, open, multiform institute that put its Labs and In-Labs at the heart of the academy.
Since 2018, the Jan van Eyck Academie has been increasingly involved in the social discourse, offering new perspectives and initiating conversations about the role of art and design in a world of climate collapse and environmental breakdown. Academy participants, were, are and will remain at the core.
Now, in 2023, we celebrate the institute for its diversity, for research, and experimentation it catalyzes. Throughout this anniversary year, we will reveal parts of our rich archive and shed light on the academy’s illustrious history. We invite the public to take a walk down memory lane and re-discover the Jan van Eyck through our social media channels.
The anniversary exhibition Communal Enthusiasm will open on 15 September 2023, curated by writer, art historian, and Jan van Eyck alumnus Pádraic E. Moore. Selected works will be on display throughout the building, highlighting various events, milestones, people, and designs that have shaped the institute over the past 75 years.
Image on top : 1961, Opening of the Jan van Eyck building, Academieplein 1, Maastricht
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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