De Pont is an independent museum housed in a renovated former woolen mill in the town of Tilburg, Netherlands. Benthem Crouwel Architects designed the conversion of the industrial building, with its characteristic shed roof, into an exceptional exhibition space rich in natural light. The museum, opened in 1992, was then expanded in 2016 with a new wing dedicated to photographic and video presentations. This addition connects to a more spacious cafeteria and a splendid garden.

Museum architecture, credits: Jasper Loeffen, courtesy De Pont Museum

The exhibition program, originally based mainly on the presentation of painting and sculpture exhibitions, has now been integrated with installations, performances, film and photography. The museum takes its name from the jurist and entrepreneur J.H. de Pont (1915-1987), whose legacy provided the funds for the promotion and support of contemporary art in a town whose metropolitan area barely reaches three hundred thousand inhabitants. A choice of authentic patronage since this dream of his only became operational after his death. The museum boasts incredible works in its collections by the most diverse international authors. Here are some examples: Ai Weiwei, Lothar Baumgarten, Christian Boltanski, Angela Bulloch, Thierry De Cordier, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Bernard Frize, Dan Graham, Roni Horn, Anish Kapoor, Wolfang Laib, Gerhard Merz, Tony Oursler, Sigmar Polke, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Anri Sala, Luc Tuymans, Bill Viola, Henk Visch, Jeff Wall.

Tino Sehgal, credits: Edd Horder, Blenheim Art Foundation, 2021, courtesy De Pont Museum

In September, De Pont Museum will present the live work This youiiyou (2023) by Tino Sehgal. This youiiyou is a kind of choreography where voice, rhythm and body language develop around the theme of intergenerational connection. For five months, this intimate and dematerialized work will be reprised daily in the museum’s largest gallery, inviting visitors to reflection and participation. The work This youiiyou was first performed at the Centro Botín in 2023 as a dialogical interface with The Adoration of the Shepherds by El Greco, dated 1577-1579. Then, in 2024, this work was reprised at the Midsummer Festival in Cork, Ireland. But it will be understood that, as in every theatrical work, the score is subject to slight variations, and to those small mutations that make the execution always perfectible and adaptable in the places where it is presented.

Hamza Halloubi, “Its throat is parched with thirst, but it would not accept a single drop of water from alien hands”, 2025, credits: 3d animation BY Sam Gielen, music by Lieven Marten, courtesy De Pont Museum

This further reissue of This youiiyou also marks the continuation of a long-standing collaboration between Sehgal and Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, director of De Pont Museum. Their first collaboration dates back to 2003 with the presentation of Twenty Minutes for the Twentieth Century (2000), which took place at the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam. Other projects followed, including one for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where Sehgal, under the cover of the title A Year at the Stedelijk: Tino Sehgal (2015), presented seventeen live works. This youiiyou is based on this shared and now consolidated history, while opening a new chapter. And surprises are the only thing we don’t need to worry about: they will not be lacking and will certainly not disappoint expectations.

Wolfgang Laib, “Wachsraum”, De Pont Museum 1993. Photography: P. Cox, courtesy De Pont Museum

Tino Sehgal, of Indian origin, was born in London in 1976, and lives in Berlin. His work, very radical and recognized worldwide, is based on the interaction between situations he sets up within a narrative framework and the audience whose reactions cannot be known in advance. These are mostly ephemeral situations, life experiences, fluid sensations, with references to dance and the traditions of the neo-avant-garde. Let’s think of Fabio Sargentini and the numerous music and dance festivals he promoted… it was the end of the 1960s of the last century, it was in Rome. The first festival came to light in 1969, with a very engaging title: “Dance Flight Music Dynamite”. The names that landed on the “stage” were those of Simone Forti, La Monte Young, Steve Paxton; followed years later by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Yvonne Rainer and so on. The roots are all there: explosive energy, confusion of genres, temporal dilation of the event. Now, even in Sehgal, what emerges as predominant is the temporal extension; a kind of theatricalization of the sign where repetitions provoke different nuances day by day. The author relies each time on a substantial number of actors or extras who support the structure of the show and the repetitions themselves. Suggestion? Uneasiness? Disappearances? Appearances? Ultimately a poetics based on the imperceptible and on indetermination. It’s as if the author, day after day, posed this question to the audience: “I feel this; and what do you feel?”

Marlene Dumas, “Black Drawings”, De Pont Museum 1992. Photography: P. Cox, courtesy De Pont Museum

His works have been exhibited (or welcomed and “represented”) in important international institutions, including the Guggenheim Museum (New York), Tate Modern (London), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Tai Kwun (Hong Kong), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) and Centro Botín (Santander). Furthermore, on September 13, coinciding with the launch of Sehgal’s project, an installation by Hamza Halloubi (Tangier, 1982) will be inaugurated: His throat is parched with thirst, but he would not accept a single drop of water from alien hands. This work by Halloubi was first presented at De Pont Museum in 2015, so it is a site-specific revival that will however be accompanied by the screening of his recent feature film Vizor. In short, there are plenty of reasons for a trip to Tilburg.

Bruno Sain

Info:

Tino Sehgal + Hamza Halloubi
13/09/2025 – 1/03/2026
De Pont Museum, Tilburg
depont.nl

Juliet Art Magazine

is a contemporary art magazine since 1980