A 2900 x 5000 mm woven tapestry depicting the current condition of a baroque ceiling as it is conserved in the storage of the Amsterdam Museum collection. The tapestry was made for the 2014 exhibition Artificial Amsterdam at De Appel art space, and shown in the same room of the building at Prins Hendrikkade 142 that the ceiling has originally been part of. Further research revealed that the large crates, which are kept so preciously in the storage, are in fact a 19th century copy of the original ceiling: a plaster cast was made as the mounting of the ceiling was too frail. As the motif on the object is symmetrical, the tapestry shows only half of the volume of the ceiling, reassembled in its original order.
During research and production of this piece, and in the collaboration with the historical Amsterdam Museum, the tension between preservation concerns on one hand, and making our heritage public on the other, surfaced time and time again.
The entire 'Green Room', as it was called, has been on display at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam between 1900 and the early 1970’s. Blunt alterations have been made to the space, in order to make it fit for this exhibit and previous ones.