All the knowledge of the world

Works by Fiona Tan, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré and Efrat Zehavi alongside books in new exhibition House of the Book

On 29 June, the House of Books will open the exhibition 'All the Knowledge in the World', featuring work by Fiona Tan, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Efrat Zehavi and others, as well as historical masterpieces from the museum's collection. The exhibition delves into the human urge to accumulate knowledge, combining books such as Avicenna's Liber canonis medicinae, the Liber chronicarum and the flagship of the Enlightenment, Diderot's Encyclopédie with contemporary art. Why do humans want to collect all the knowledge in the world, and what does that say about us? Influential books from the past take on a different value over time. The interaction between these books and the work of Tan, Bruly Bouabré and Zehavi gives the museum and its visitors the space to ask these questions anew.
 

Influential books featuring work by leading artists

The work of artists Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Fiona Tan and Efrat Zehavi shows that writers are not the only ones concerned with the theme of collecting knowledge. Among the medieval manuscripts and Diderot's Encyclopédie are drawings by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, one of the most famous African artists of the moment. In 2022, he had a retrospective exhibition at MoMa in New York. After a vision, he decided that he had to collect all the knowledge in the world. Among the museum's antiquities, we see visual work by Efrat Zehavi. She created new work based on research into the museum's collection. Zehavi's work reflects on the body as a repository of knowledge and experiences. She is an artist whose work is currently prominently featured in the recently opened FENIX museum for art and migration in Rotterdam. Fiona Tan's film 'Archive' (2019) highlights the fascinating ambition of the 'Mundaneum': an early 20th-century institution that wanted to collect and organise all the world's knowledge. Think of it as a visionary 'paper internet', structured using the Universal Decimal Classification system. Tan will also be presenting her exhibition 'Monomania' in Amsterdam from 4 July, for which she was given carte blanche by the Rijksmuseum to make a selection from its collection.