There is a Boijmans beyond the Boijmans we know. Behind the scenes of the museum lies a network of artists, staff members, makers, and stories. Bootleg Boijmans offers a glimpse into this less visible landscape.
This summer exhibition brings together a group of artists who currently work, or have previously worked, at the museum. A shared workplace unfolds into a multifaceted exhibition where diverse artistic practices meet, creating unexpected and playful connections.
Bootlegs emerge in the ambiguous space between original and copy, homage and appropriation, between the official and the alternative narrative. They demonstrate that something new always comes into being when an original is copied, shared, or reinterpreted. Bootleg Boijmans invites visitors to forge their own connections and reflect on the question: who—or what—is the museum?
Now that the museum building itself is temporarily absent, this question takes on an added significance. Bootleg Boijmans reveals that a museum is more than its collection alone. It lives through the people, the studios, and the network that shape the institution every day—a network brought together here for the first time.