No vacuum cleaners and no feather dusters are in the order that has gone out to cleaning staff at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
As part of an exhibition exploring the changing perceptions of creepy-crawlies in art and science through the ages, the national museum of the Netherlands allowed its crevices and corners to go wild for the last three months.
Julia Kantelberg, assistant curator, said they had been encouraged by Tom s Saraceno, an Argentinian artist based in Berlin, whose work appears in the show, to treasure the accumulation of spider webs wherever they may emerge.
She said that the webs are being treated as pieces of art to be venerated for now, at least as if they were The Night Watch by Rembrandt or The Milkmaid by Vermeer, two of the museum's headline masterpieces.
Saraceno challenged us to acknowledge spider webs that we are already cohabiting with in the Rijksmuseum. We had to change our procedures and broaden our perspectives by not removing spiders and their webs from public areas. The cleaners were asked not to remove spiders and their webs three months before the exhibition opening. I have been going around every week since I noticed when webs started to appear a very different way of looking around the building that I know so well. People braving the museum for the exhibition opening on 30 September will explore how attitudes have changed over time, and will also be asked to reconsider their own feelings about bugs of all shapes and sizes. It is suggested that in the middle ages lizards, insects and spiders were associated with death and the devil in European culture, but the exhibition notes that in the 16th and 17th centuries there was a reimagining after the microscope allowed artists and scientists to appreciate a beauty that had not been always obvious.
Among the works on show is Albrecht D rer's 1505 painting of a stag beetle, its pincers raised. Kantelberg said that the exhibition opened up in a room of the middle ages, and then you go through the early modern period where the whole world opens up with the invention of the microscope.
Scientists and artists are fascinated by the beauty and ingenuity of these small animals. By the end of the exhibition you walk into a very beautiful, almost entirely dark room with a big artwork by Tom s, so it is really the centrepiece of the room. Saraceno's sculpture is made from silk woven by four spider species that are local to the artist's studio in Berlin. He said it is more difficult to say it is my sculpture and that the spiders should be recognised as artists themselves.
An Open Letter for Invertebrate Rights, penned by Saraceno and placed next to one of the webs that appeared in the museum over the past few weeks, makes a case for cohabiting with creepy-crawlies rather than viewing them as pests.
Saraceno, who allows spiders to thrive in his own home, suggested that it was humans who were living in the spider world rather than the other way round.
He said: Spiders have been on the planet for almost 280 million years and we humans only 300,000. With this letter on invertebrate rights, we say, Hey look, spiders have the right also to come to the museum, spiders are around you We have asked the museum to stop treating them as pests, and the museum has agreed in a beautiful way to stop brooming them away. Other works on the show include an installation called Casa Tomada by Colombian artist Rafael Gomezbarros, which features a swarm of gigantic sculptural ants.
The exhibition, Clara and Crawly Creatures, runs until January 15th.