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# Actors Restage Rembrandt's "Night Watch" in Mall
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/actors-restage-rembrandts-night-watch-in-amsterdam-mall/
- Published: 2013-04-11T18:01:14.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:18:20.000Z
- Description: A thief in a garish feathered hat runs out of a shopping mall store with a leather bag clutched in his hand. He jumps down the stairs and tries desperately to escape as ropes descend down the mall’s atrium. Guards emerge to catch the criminal — but they’re on horseback, dressed in brimmed caps, and
- Author: Kyle Chayka
- Tags: Opinion, Amsterdam, Rembrandt, Rijksmuseum, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![Reenactors in the mall (Screencapture by Hyperallergic from The Guardian)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/04/rembrandtvideo_top.png)

Reenactors in the mall (Screencapture by Hyperallergic from The Guardian)

A thief in a garish feathered hat [runs out of a shopping mall store](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/apr/05/flashmob-rembrandt-amsterdam-shopping-video?ref=hyperallergic.com) with a leather bag clutched in his hand. He jumps down the stairs and tries desperately to escape as ropes descend down the mall’s atrium. Guards emerge to catch the criminal — but they’re on horseback, dressed in brimmed caps, and decked out with ruffled collars. A regiment of guards on foot marches toward the thief with halberds outstretched. After they catch the would-be escapee, a frame falls from the ceiling of the mall and brackets a view of proud policemen: This is Rembrandt’s “[The Night Watch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FNight%5FWatch?ref=hyperallergic.com).”

!["The Night Watch" in the renovated Rijksmuseum (Image via Holland.com)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/04/33412_fullimage_10--night-watch-gallery_560x350.png)

“The Night Watch” in the renovated Rijksmuseum (Image via Holland.com)

A group of Dutch actors staged this real-life version of Rembrandt’s iconic painting of 1642, which depicts a company led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq, in an Amsterdam mall, using the central space as a theatrical set for the drama of the canvas. The reenactment, documented in the video below, celebrates the reopening of Amsterdam’s [Rijksmuseum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rijksmuseum?ref=hyperallergic.com), which just launched its new space after a [decade-long renovation](http://www.holland.com/us/tourism/article/Rijksmuseum-Reopening.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com). The renovation restores “The Night Watch” to its central location; it’s the only object in the museum that stayed in the exact same place, [reports the Associated Press](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/rijksmuseum-renovation-br%5Fn%5F3013322.html?ref=hyperallergic.com).

Echoed by the shopping mall 17th-century flash-mob stunt, the painting shows a phalanx of armed men posing proudly as a group. Stretching almost 12 feet by 14.5 feet, the canvas itself is massive. It was completed at the height of the Dutch Golden Age, when group portraiture was a popular method of showing social and political stature. One of Rembrandt’s many innovations in the piece was to capture the crew with a sense of arrested motion — rather than acting as an austere, static portrait, the painting shows each figure in the process of completing an action: pointing a spear, cleaning a gun, or gesturing in the act of speech. The theatrics of actual actors running around in imitation of his dramatic painting would doubtless make the artist proud. Now where’s the Caravaggio reenactment?

!["The Night Watch" by Rembrandt (1642) (Image via wikipedia.org)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/04/the_nightwatch_by_rembrandt.jpg)

“The Night Watch” by Rembrandt (1642) (Image via wikipedia.org)