Annotaties 1886 - 1908

Curator: At first glance, it’s a jumble! A peek into someone's mind, like rifling through their desk drawers – but somehow poetic? Editor: We’re looking at "Annotaties," a pencil drawing on paper by George Hendrik Breitner. It seems to have been worked on from 1886 to 1908, so what we’re really seeing is time and thought layered upon each other. The Rijksmuseum holds it, contextualizing Breitner's impressionistic cityscapes and portraits within a documentary impulse. Curator: Ah, “Annotaties” makes perfect sense now! It reminds me of my own chaotic notes – sudden, urgent ideas fighting for space, all interconnected in ways only I fully understand, kind of spilling into the creative ether... it's beautifully unresolved. Editor: The sketch seems like a precursor to so much cultural criticism that uses handwriting as a source. Here, that personal script challenges our idea of authority of writing – and that becomes very interesting when placed within the institutional framing of the museum. Who does annotation serve and who gets to produce them? Curator: Oh, I like that... I'd seen it more as a kind of abstract self-portrait through words – these aren’t neat, confident pronouncements. You get a palpable sense of his searching, his uncertainty. It is really something that you pointed the authority – or a challenge to the authority– in this artwork, very perceptive! Editor: Definitely, but notice the historical context: it seems Breitner had to assert his right to produce these inscriptions within the rapidly changing artistic landscape and amidst his negotiation with traditions of documentation, perhaps even resistance, within the context of early modernism. It's not just personal, it is always already political. Curator: Exactly, it's a lovely mess. And Breitner really invites us into his working process… like you say, a perfect bridge from art to activism, challenging convention and offering, even demanding, the world sees things differently.