What About Words? Activism and Cultural Change in the Amsterdam Museum

On September 12, 2019, the Amsterdam Museum announced that it would change the title of its (semi) permanent exhibition Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age to Portrait Gallery of the 17th Century. The museum decided to dispose of the term Golden Age because it frames the Dutch history from a celebratory nationalist perspective and obscures the aggressive mercantile and colonial aspects. This chapter aims to analyse the process that led to the Amsterdam Museum abandoning the term. In the Dutch museum world and in the Amsterdam Museum more specifically, a process of change in the hegemonic ‘regimes of representation’ was going on for quite some years. Yet, the final blow that led to the decision to no longer use the term Golden Age was given by an activist with a migration background. The chapter focuses on the meaning of the strategic intervention of the activist and on the way he was able to mobilize the museum to take action in such a way as to come to publicly contest a deeply ingrained representation of Dutch history and culture.