TOMORROW IS A DIFFERENT DAY
COLLECTION 1980–NOW
Exhibition — Ongoing
Tomorrow is a Different Day spotlights art and design from the collection, from 1980 to the present, by international artists and designers who are helping to shape the changes of today and tomorrow. They challenge the status quo and offer alternative perspectives.
The decades since the 1980s have been marked by dramatic global transformations—globalisation, migration, decolonisation, digitisation, the expansion of the primary and secondary markets, and the acknowledgement of various diasporas in art and society. These global and social shifts have not gone unnoticed by artists and designers, as the work in Tomorrow is a Different Day reveals. Ever-more responsive to the world we live in, artists use their work as a force for change. By voicing resistance, by challenging conventions, and by sharing narratives of hope and longing, they tell meaningful stories that resonate in our lives today.
Some artists in the new collection presentation had, for a long time, been less visible in the museum. For Tomorrow is a Different Day, the curators sought out untold narratives, to be displayed alongside more famous names. The Stedelijk also made a point of purchasing several new works by artists including Martine Syms, El Anatsui, and Marcel Pinas to deepen the collection. On the basis of themes such as urban activism, ecology, digitisation and migration, this refreshed collection presentation presents a multiplicity of histories, showcasing works by familiar and lesser-known names such as Steve McQueen, Rineke Dijkstra, Wolfgang Tillmans, Marlene Dumas, Sheila Hicks, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Harvey Bouterse, Remy Jungerman and Danielle Dean.