Bathtub Lecture
with Ekow Eshun
News — Dec 1, 2025
On Saturday 13 December, writer and curator Ekow Eshun will deliver the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s annual Bathtub Lecture. In his lecture In the Realm of the Marvellous, he explores how artists and art institutions can stay afloat in a time of increasing political pressure, cultural polarization, and social tension.
Eshun examines how the museum can relate to the ways artists work today. Many artists draw on intuition, association, physical experience, and imagination—approaches that often contrast sharply with the more analytical and rational perspective museums traditionally employ. He therefore argues that institutions should take alternative artistic approaches seriously, creating space for greater depth, empathy, and new insights. By embracing imagination, museums can, according to Eshun, offer deeper engagement, presenting new perspectives and new forms of knowledge.
THE URGENCY OF THE MOMENT
Eshun believes that art institutions have a crucial role to play now, in an era of growing political divides. He argues that museums can no longer rely on a neutral stance but must develop a language that does justice to the multitude of perspectives within society. In the Realm of the Marvellous is thus a call for museums to become “living” spaces of encounter—places that accommodate different visions of the future: more open, more inclusive, and more attuned to today’s multi-voiced reality.
THE BATHTUB LECTURE
The Bathtub Lecture is an annual tradition in which the Stedelijk invites a thinker or maker to reflect on urgent issues in the contemporary art world. After this year’s lecture, art historian and curator Malgorzata Ludwisiak will respond from her expertise in institutional innovation and the future of museums. Eshun and Ludwisiak will then enter into conversation with the audience, moderated by curator Amanda Pinatih. Afterwards, drinks will be served next to the Auditorium.
ABOUT EKOW ESHUN
Ekow Eshun is a London-based writer and curator whose work focuses on identity, representation, and contemporary culture. He is chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, responsible for London’s leading public art program, and served as director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) from 2005 to 2010. Eshun has curated influential exhibitions, including In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery (later at Kunsthal Rotterdam) and the more recent The Time Is Always Now, on representations of the Black body in contemporary art. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, and Vogue. He is the author of the Orwell Prize–nominated Black Gold of the Sun and editor of Africa Modern.
NOTES TO EDITORS
For more information and images, please contact the Press Office of the Stedelijk Museum, pressoffice@stedelijk.nl.