8 museomag   02 ‘ 2023 
A FRESH LOOK AT OUR 
STEICHEN COLLECTION 
“THE ARTIST’S VIEW” – A NEW SHOW CURATED BY ERWIN OLAF   
AND HANS OP DE BEECK 
Erwin Olaf and Hans Op de Beeck were invited to curate a selection of photographs for our Steichen Cabinet. 
How do you select just 20 photographs from a collection 
of almost 200? This is the challenge that the museum 
faces every three months when we curate a selection 
of prints to show in our Steichen Cabinet; a space 
dedicated to the work of the famous Luxembourg- 
born photographer. For conservation reasons, we 
need to swap out the light-sensitive prints on a regular 
basis, some of which date back to the 1910s and 1920s. 
Each show is designed to illustrate a different facet of 
Steichen’s work, which ranges from portrayals of the 
stars of his time to more intimate family portraits, from 
lyrical landscapes to rare experiments with colour. 
This time round, we invited Dutch photographer 
Erwin Olaf and Belgian visual artist Hans Op de Beeck 
to guest curate a selection of prints in the Steichen 
cabinet for us, offering a new way into this fascinating 
collection of historical prints. Staged as part of their 
joint exhibition Inspired by Steichen, on show until 11 
June, the two artists brought their unique perspective 
to bear on our extensive collection. The resulting show 
opened on 7 March in presence of one of the guest 
curators, Hans Op de Beeck, and our resident fine arts 
curator Ruud Priem. 
“WE VERY EASILY FOUND 
COMMON GROUND” 
Interestingly, the two artists were often drawn to the 
same pieces when choosing the works for the show. 
As Ruud Priem notes, “They each have a unique way of 
seeing the world, but they often pick up on the same 
things.” This is also evident in the Inspired by Steichen 
show, which draws attention to the parallels in Hans Op 
de Beeck’s and Erwin Olaf’s practices. As Hans points 
out: “We were producing very similar images – the 
idea of floating, being adrift and the unknown seemed 
to preoccupy us both”. He adds that: “We very easily 
found common ground to make the selection for the 
Steichen Cabinet”. 
© 
éric chenal