ABSTRACT
This chapter is a first-hand account of the curatorial logics and challenges of making an exhibition about prostitution, arguing that city museums can be contact zones. Situated in the very heart of the city, the Red Light District is one of the iconic areas of Amsterdam. An ever-changing landscape of (paid) sex, it is at times very publicly visible and at other times hidden from view. This chapter reflects on two exhibitions at the Amsterdam Museum: Love for Sale (2002), an exhibition about prostitution in the Dutch capital since the Middle Ages, and the 2010 show, The Hoerengracht, which had as its centrepiece an enormous life-sized installation by the American artists, Ed and Nancy Kienholz, which recreated Amsterdam’s Red Light District of the 1980s. This latter exhibition, particularly, proved to be a complex and uncomfortable subject that raised a lot of questions about the possibilities and problems of a metropolitan museum presenting such controversial subject matter. The show forced us to reflect on the social and cultural dynamics of the museum, both within its walls and in its relationship to the world beyond. This chapter begins with a discussion of the storyline, design and objects of Love for Sale and The Hoerengracht; it then considers the involvement of artists and, finally, the interactions between visitors and objects in the associated MuseumLab Framing Prostitution.
