Tentoonstellingen Archive

Kishio Suga – Where Both Sides Meet

zaterdag 28 jun 2025 t/m zondag 26 okt 2025

Deel:

Museum Cobra is proud to present the first Dutch solo exhibition of the Japanse artist Kishio Suga. In the late sixties, Suga and his contemporaries resisted the urge to control or shape nature. Instead, they let materials speak in their own language – raw, temporary, fragile – and asked themselves: what does it mean to simply let things be?

Kishio Suga, In the State of Equal Dimension, 1973, C-print. © Kishio Suga, BLUM and Mendes Wood DM

The Mono-ha movement
The Mono-ha movement emerged in Tokyo in response to social and political tensions in the sixties, especially geo-political relations between Asia and the United States. Instead of creating traditional works of art, the artists worked with natural and industrial materials in their unaltered state. This was an expression of their displeasure about postwar modernity and rapid industrialization. Suga’s work exemplifies this approach, in which meaning emerges from the relationship between objects, their surroundings, and the time we spend together with them.

About the exhibition
Where Both Sides Meet refers to one of Suga’s thoughts in 1976. He surmised that art arises where the worlds of movement (such as people) and silence (such as stones) meet, creating space for reflection and wonder. It is precisely this search for the reciprocal correspondence of different elements that makes Suga’s work so powerful. He invites us to look again, to pay attention to what is otherwise taken for granted. His work is an invitation to silence, to presence, and sometimes even to smile.

About Kishio Suga
Kishio Suga (1944, Morioka, Japan) is an key figure of the postwar Japanese avant-garde and know for his poetic installations and sculptures in which natural and industrial materials come together in their original state. After studying at Tama Art University, Suga began doing “field works” outdoors, combining materials such as wood, stone, and metal in the state in which they were found. In addition to installations, he also creates works on paper, wall assemblages, and performances, which he calls “activations”. His oeuvre is extensive and internationally recognized, with exhibitions at MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and the Venice Biennale, among others. Suga lives and work in Ito, Japan.

Kishio Suga, Standing, 1969/2023, glass, wood and stones. Variable dimensions © the artist and Mendes Wood DM and BLUM. Photo: Gui Gomes

Lucebert X it is part of an ensemble

vrijdag 4 apr 2025 t/m zondag 31 aug 2025

Deel:

Between owls, bats and blind spots

Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk, 1924 – 1994) was a Dutch poet and visual artist, known as one of the most important representatives of the Vijftigers. His work is characterized by an experimental, free style and a profound exploration of language, image and political engagement. In addition to his poetry and painting, he leaves behind a vast and influential body of work, which is still studied and exhibited today. In 2018, a controversial side of his past came to light, leading to renewed discussions about his work and legacy.

Lucebert X it is part of an ensemble, photo: Gert Jan van Rooij

About the exhibition
Museum Cobra has invited artist collective it is part of an ensemble to respond to its artistic ideas and work. The collective is a changing group of approximately thirty artists, theater makers and performers who conduct research and create exhibitions, performances and publications together. In the exhibition Between Owls, Bats and Blind Spots, the collective explores the potential for ongoing metamorphosis in relation to Lucebert’s artistic legacy. Lucebert’s work is populated by strange creatures, monsters and fantasy animals – from innocent and lovely to ominous and evil – the collective places these characters in a contemporary perspective. In the exhibition, the collective brings together work by Lucebert with its own work and spatial interventions. At the center of the presentation is a studio and study space that will be actively used and transformed during the exhibition.

Lucebert House
During a working period at the Lucebert House, it is part of an ensemble delved into his oeuvre, his living environment and his sources of inspiration, such as literature and music. From this new work has emerged, ranging from collectively made drawings and collages to bread dough masks, costumes, free jazz performances and textile sculptures. For the exhibition, work by Lucebert from the collection of Museum Cobra is complemented by never-before-exhibited works from his family’s private collection, a short film by Johan van der Keuken and objects from the Lucebert House in Bergen.

About the collective it is part of an ensemble
it is part of an ensemble is a multidisciplinary collective that has been operating at the intersection of visual art and theater since 2018. For each project, new collaborations are entered into and the composition of the group changes. Recurring questions are: How do we live together, how do we work together? How do we shape our togetherness? This involves the whole ecology of living together, including non-human animals, plants, architecture and the environment. The collective previously had presentations in Billytown, The Hague; Club Solo, Breda; De Pont, Tilburg and Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint Martens Latem (B), among others.

Participating artists
Participating in this exhibition are Matea Bakula, Kim David Bots, Lotte Driessen, Marisa Goedhart, G.C. Heemskerk, Bas van den Hurk, Sjuul Joosen, Marijn van Kreij, Joost Krijnen, Jochem van Laarhoven, Marcia Liu, Bernice Nauta, Matthijs van de Sande Bakhuyzen, Samieh Shahcheraghi, Reinout Scholten van Aschat, Marianne Theunissen, Maxim Ventulé, Mattias van de Vijver, Loran van de Wier, Hussel Zhu and others.

Audio tour
Exclusively for this exhibition, it is part of an ensemble has created an experimental audio tour recorded in Lucebert’s former studio in Bergen. This collection of audio collages offers a colorful mix of voices and sounds that both represent the dynamics of the collective and explore the versatility of Lucebert’s work and world. The tour is informative but also sets a certain mood, entirely in the spirit of Cobra: spontaneous and experimental!

You can listen to the audio tour in the museum via your own smartphone and headset. So don’t forget to bring your earphones! If you don’t have a headset or have forgotten it: they are also for sale at the entrance desk.

Wolvecamp 100 X Sam Samiee

zaterdag 22 mrt 2025 t/m zondag 15 jun 2025

Deel:

To mark the 100th anniversary of Theo Wolvecamp’s birth, Museum Cobra presents a festive exhibition linking the work of this influential but modest Cobra artist with that of Iranian-Dutch artist and guest curator Sam Samiee.

Theo Wolvecamp (Hengelo 1925 – Amsterdam 1992) is often described as an artist who deliberately kept to the sidelines. Unlike his Cobra colleagues, he worked outside the spotlight and stayed true to his own path, far away from the noise of publicity. Yet he was a driving force within the movement. Wolvecamp devoted his life to one of Cobra’s core principles: free, spontaneous painting in which improvisation and experimentation play the leading role. His work was always sincere, free of external appearances, and found its strength in the intuition and spontaneity with which it was created.

What makes Wolvecamp unique is the combination of the mythical and the material. He saw paint not just as a tool, but as a living material with which he brought his own world to life. He admired artists such as Asger Jorn, who he felt perfectly captured this balance between content and form. Miró and Alechinsky were also great sources of inspiration, but Wolvecamp’s work continues to unmistakably carry his own voice: raw, spontaneous and sensitive.

Sam Samiee, winner of the 2018 Wolvecamp Prize, sees Wolvecamp as an important source of inspiration. Like his predecessor, he approaches painting as a free, experimental process, but he also brings in new perspectives. In his work, European painting traditions merge with Persian cultural references, and he explores the boundaries of the medium by expanding painting into installations and spatial interventions.

His expressive use of color, dynamic brushwork and layered textures create an experience that is both sensory and intellectually stimulating. In doing so, like Wolvecamp, he seeks a balance between spontaneous creation and deeper layers of content. In this exhibition, Samiee links not only the heritage of Cobra to contemporary art, but also to broader cultural connections, such as the influence of Iranian artists on Western art history and the narrative nature of One Thousand and One Nights.

About Theo Wolvecamp
Theo Wolvecamp began painting at an early age. In 1947, after two years, he left the art academy in Arnhem, where he felt restricted by academic rules, and moved to Amsterdam. There he threw everything he had learned earlier overboard and became involved as the youngest co-founder in the Experimental Group in Holland and in 1948 in the Cobra movement. From 1953 to 1954 Wolvecamp lived in Paris and then returned to his hometown of Hengelo.

Wolvecamp was a man of nature. He did not limit himself to figuration or abstraction; feeling was more important to him than what was depicted. To him, painting was like hunting: a search for a hidden emotion or idea that only presented itself during the painting process. He aptly described it himself: “I hit with a stick and it (game) comes out. Something similar plays out in painting. It comes from within and yet it goes outside of you.

About Sam Samiee
Sam Samiee (born Tehran, 1988) is an Iranian-Dutch multidisciplinary artist, painter, essayist and researcher. His work combines painting, installation and curatorial practice, drawing on European painting traditions and Persian culture. He engages in psychoanalysis and cultural history and explores the intersections between Western and non-Western art. His immersive, conceptually rich compositions invite the viewer to actively participate.

Samiee studied at the Art University in Tehran, AKI ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design in Enschede and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. His work was shown at the 10th Berlin Biennale and at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, among others, and is included in several collections, including Centraal Museum Utrecht and Kadist Art Foundation. Samiee received the Royal Dutch Painting Prize and the Wolvecamp Prize and was a juror for both hereafter.

Sam Samiee

Dora Tuynman — Paris, New York, Amsterdam

zaterdag 22 mrt 2025 t/m zondag 15 jun 2025

Deel:

Starting March 22, the first retrospective of Dutch artist Dora Tuynman (1926-1979) will open at Museum Cobra. The exhibition is a retrospective and tribute to one of the most underexposed Dutch artists of the 20th century. Museum Cobra shows her artistic development from her early figurative landscapes to her later abstract works and includes many works never before presented to the public.

Installation photo Dora Tuynman – Parijs, New York, Amsterdam. Photo: LNDWstudio

About Dora Tuynman
In the 1950s, Tuynman lived and worked in the famous Parisian warehouse and studio building on Rue Santeuil where artists such as Karel Appel, Corneille, Lotti van der Gaag and Bram Bogart also worked. Tuynman was relatively successful in Paris, but once back in the Netherlands was unable to match this success. Like so many female artists of the twentieth century, Tuynman fell into oblivion, consciously or unconsciously pushed aside by art history focused on male artists.

Bold and completely individual
Tuynman’s work is bold, daring, entirely her own and evolves nicely. At the beginning of her career her work is figurative with many landscapes, but in Paris these images of nature become more and more abstract, culminating in paintings that lack any reference to visible nature. Later when she returned to the Netherlands, her work became figurative again. In addition to landscapes, Tuynman then paints portrait studies, which she calls her “dolls.”

The exhibition
Dora Tuynman — Paris, New York, Amsterdam is the first retrospective showing the full development in Tuynman’s oeuvre. The exhibition not only provides an overview of her career, but also shows personal and artistic struggles Tuynman went through. This creates a complete picture of this artist, giving insight into both her work and her life. The exhibition is curated by guest curator Pim Arts.

With Dora Tuynman — Paris, New York, Amsterdam, visitors to Museum Cobra can finally get to know a great and important artist of the 20th century.

Cobra Kunstprijs Amstelveen

donderdag 14 nov 2024 t/m zondag 23 mrt 2025

Deel:

Sylvie Zijlmans & Hewald Jongenelis win Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen 2024

Museum Cobra is proud to announce that the Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen 2024 has been awarded to the renowned artist duo Sylvie Zijlmans & Hewald Jongenelis! The Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen honors artists who, like the Cobra movement, focus on creative experimentation and social commitment. In addition to the award of a cash prize of 15,000 euros, the prize also includes a solo exhibition of current work in Museum Cobra.

*Cobra Kunstprijs Amstelveen 2024. Foto: Matthijs Immink*

About the artist duo
The art of Sylvie Zijlmans & Hewald Jongenelis shows how creativity can inspire, connect and offer new perspectives. The jury, consisting of Roos Gortzak (director Vleeshal, Middelburg), Melchior Jaspers (art advisor to the Chief Government Architect and exhibition maker), and Sjarel Ex (art historian), chose Zijlmans & Jongenelis as the winner because of their playful, experimental and collective art practice – three traits that are directly connected to the legacy of Cobra. The duo is known for their socially engaged art, which often explores dystopian themes, yet always contains a hint of optimism and togetherness. Their work is a unique blend of performance, sculpture and interactive installations, focusing on the role of the human being. Sylvie Zijlmans & Hewald Jongenelis not only create artworks, but bring people together to participate in their visionary worlds.

About the Prize
The Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen has been awarded since 2005 and is intended for visual artists who are in the middle of their careers and whose oeuvre is related to the ideas and engaged art practice of the Cobra movement. The core of this movement is formed by experimental, playful and a radical approach to art. The prize consists of a cash prize of 15,000 euros and a solo exhibition in Museum Cobra. With the Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen, Museum Cobra together with the municipality of Amstelveen creates attention for how the values of the Cobra movement play a role in contemporary art today. Previous winners include Joost Conijn (2005), Johannes Schwartz (2007), Gijs Frieling (2009), Nathaniel Mellors (2011), Metahaven (2013), Jennifer Tee (2015), Christian Friedrich (2017) and Guido van der Werve (2021). The Cobra Art Prize Amstelveen is made possible by the Municipality of Amstelveen.

About the exhibition
The exhibition Voices From a Simmering City is on view from November 14, 2024 through March 23, 2025 at Museum Cobra and features several installations.

Recall of Infinity

vrijdag 20 sep 2024 t/m zondag 3 nov 2024

Deel:

Recall of Infinity

Recall of Infinity follows the exhibition Endless Imagination and showcases the work of forty-one artists who have been nominated for the Special Award 2023-2024, a support program and visual arts competition for artists with disabilities. A selection of three works from each artist is featured in the exhibition.

Courage and Experimentation
The jury, comprised of artists Lisa Couwenbergh, Jacobien de Rooij, Roland Berning, and Paul Klemann, was deeply impressed by the boldness and experimentation with which these artists express their perspective on the world, each in a truly individual way.

What stands out is the enormous diversity of the works included in the exhibition, each defined by its own quality and character. The significant differences in subject matter, material use, and technique reflect the wide range of ages, interests, and experience of the participating artists. One common aspect is the profound passion evident in every piece—art created not for fame or fortune, but motivated purely by an inner drive.

The exhibition is divided into four themes: Inner Worlds, Interactions, Observations, and Fantasy Worlds. From surreal scenes and personal fascinations to dreamy biotopes and social commentary, these works collectively offer a unique insight into the creative world of artists with disabilities.

Special Award
The Special Award is an initiative by Special Arts, a national foundation dedicated to promoting arts and cultural participation among artists with disabilities. Through a wide range of activities, Special Arts aims to encourage and inspire these artists, along with others, to engage in the arts. The jury will select the winner of the Special Award 2024 from the artists featured in the exhibition. In addition, the public will have the opportunity to vote for the audience choice award.

Jessica Magnin, Onzichtbare amfibie

The New Mother Sculptures

zondag 20 okt 2024 t/m zondag 2 mrt 2025

Deel:

The New Mother Sculptures
An Enveloping Sculptural Experience

From Sunday, the 20th of October, The New Mother Sculptures, an exhibition curated by renowned Dutch artist Ad de Jong, can be seen. It features over fifty sculptures by artists based in the Netherlands, displayed in an immersive, unique environment. With a specially crafted clay floor and soundscape, visitors are invited to experience art in an entirely new way – not just visually, but by engaging all their senses.

Enveloping Experience
The New Mother Sculptures transforms the museum’s upper gallery into a vast, open landscape that offers a captivating way to explore the contemporary artworks. Each sculpture conveys a distinct physical and emotional world – sometimes cursing and screaming, other times tender and warm. These are worlds that defy rational interpretation, encouraging us to simply observe, feel, and exist within them. The exhibition showcases sculptures from both emerging talents and established artists, including tapestries, enchanting iron constructions, a Canta decorated with nitrous oxide canisters, coloured glass bricks, plastic truck tarps, structures made from root tissue, an endless bookshelf, and more. Visitors are encouraged to take off their shoes and explore the exhibition barefoot, without using their phones. The physical contact with the artworks, combined with a mysterious soundscape and the earthy scent of clay infused with seeds, creates an atmosphere of total immersion.

About Ad de Jong
Ad de Jong is a prominent visual artist and curator, and a co-founder of the legendary artist initiative W139. Previous exhibitions he has co-organized, such as BeeldHalWerk, Present Forever, and All Is Giving, have received critical acclaim. In The New Mother Sculptures, De Jong experiments with the boundaries of the museum experience, creating an environment that presents diverse visions for a potential future -a setting where art and the viewer engage with each other in a new way.

Participating Artists
Maria Roosen, Hilke Walraven, Corine Zomer, HW Werther, Annegret Kellner, Yair Callender, Kristine Hymøller, Hester Oerlemans, Henk Visch, Sachi Miyachi, Théophile Blandet, Lisa Sebestikova, Saar Scheerlings, Maya Berkhof, Maaike Kramer, WONNE, Job Koelewijn, Elena Giolo, Diana Scherer, Jonas Ohlsson, Izaak Zwartjes, Arjanne van der Spek, Esther de Graaf, Femmy Otten, Hans van den Ban, Gijs van Poecke, Klaartje van Essen, Laura Canha Malpique, Mickey Yang, Simon Wald-Lasowski, Rens Spanjaard, Ad de Jong, Jordan Herregraven, Loma Doom, Maartje Korstanje, Afra Eisma, Ellen Yiu en Suzanne Plomp.

Endless Imagination

zaterdag 13 jul 2024 t/m zondag 15 sep 2024

Deel:

Endless Imagination
The exhibition Endless Imagination features entries for the Special Award 2023-2024, a promotional program and visual arts competition for artists with disabilities. For this exhibition, Museum Cobra invited the (grand)children of Cobra artists Eugène Brands and Shinkichi Tajiri to make a selection from the submitted works. In addition, several professionals and various museums chose their favorites from the submissions. From each selection, Museum Cobra then chose works that resonate with the ideas of the Cobra movement.

Art by people with disabilities was an important source of inspiration for the Cobra artists. Defying academic rules, they found purity and uninhibitedness in Art Brut.

Both Karel Appel and Corneille visited exhibitions at Hôpital Sainte-Anne, Paris’ psychiatric institution. Appel bought the catalogue which consisted solely of text and used it as a sketchbook. Corneille provided his copy with drawings in the margin. Artist Eugène Brands also read books on the subject, which he always kept. Danish painter Carl-Henning Pedersen even said, ‘I wish I could paint as well.

Brands and Tajiri
The first museum exhibition of Cobra in 1949 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam featured the work of Brands and Tajiri in the same room, after which a long friendship between the two artists followed.

Brands’ daughter Eugénie and Tajiri’s grandchildren Tanéa and Shakuru judged the Special Award entries on the basis of their expression and individuality, keeping in mind the work of their father and grandfather, respectively. The three heirs all work in the creative sector. Their selection is characterized by colour, humor and originality and is complemented by works of art from the Cobra collection.

Special Award
The Special Award is an initiative of Special Arts, a national foundation that promotes art and cultural participation for artists with disabilities. With a wide range of activities, Special Arts aims to encourage and enthuse these artists and others to work with art.

The exhibition Endless Imagination will have a sequel in September 2024 with the exhibition Recall of Infinity. A jury will choose the Special Award winner 2024 from the artists on display there.

KunstKijker
With the Cobra KunstKijker, you can write a card to the artist of your favorite artwork!
How it works. Visit the exhibition, choose your favorite work, ask for a card at the reception desk, write a story on the card and put the card in the special mailbox at the reception desk. No need for a stamp! We make sure the cards get to the artist.

Eva Visser, Eekhoorn

Cobra Kindermuseum #2

maandag 16 sep 2024 t/m zondag 3 nov 2024

Deel:

The Cobra Children’s Museum is a unique exhibition that shows how children express their ideas around their own chosen theme. A celebration of boundless imagination!

After a number of preparatory lessons at school, at elementary school Het Palet and de Bloeiwijzer in Amstelveen, children themselves chose a theme for this second edition of the Children’s Museum. Based on this theme, over 35 children, together with accompanying artists, Annet Breure and Julia dos Santos Baptista, set to work creatively to visualize their ideas around this theme. Each time they were taught a new visual technique and they learned to give words to what they made and their ideas about it. The accompanying artists listened to their stories, creating a wonderful audio tour to accompany this exhibition.

Cobra Children’s Museum
The Cobra Children’s Museum is a placewhere children have a say in what can be seen and experienced in a museum. Their own place to realize that. The children are introduced to Museum Cobra, the Cobra philosophy, the design process of their own museum and finally the creative execution of it in the form of a real exhibition in the museum. The Cobra Children’s Museum will be built, festively opened and the children themselves will give a tour of their own museum.

This is the second edition of the Cobra Children’s Museum. Start of this second edition were preparatory lessons at school, in which questions such as “What is a museum?” and “What should a museum be about?” were central. Through an intensive, 4-day workshop, the children were taken through a creative making process that culminated in this exhibition with its own audio tour.

This second edition of the Cobra Children’s Museum was also developed and supervised by artist and visual teacher Júlia dos Santos Baptista and Annet Breure, story collector and storyteller. For more information, see www.plantenverhalen.nl/florafantastica

Partners:
ELJA Foundation, VSBfonds, Plantenverhalen, MAM (Mini Art Masterclasses by Júlia dos Santos Baptista), Basisschool De Bloeiwijzer, Basisscool Het Palet, Buurtkamer Keizer Karelpark Amstelveen

Amstelveen En Plein Air

zaterdag 18 mei 2024 t/m maandag 20 mei 2024

Deel:

Amstelveen En Plein Air

AmstellandKunst is organising a festive outdoor event in collaboration with the Cobra Museum and Museum JAN!

Something unique is going to happen in Amstelveen: around the Stadshart Amstelveen, the Oude Dorp and in the Broersepark, a large number of artists will create a new work of art in the open air! Ranging from drawings to paintings and from collages to 3-dimensional work. During this creative process, residents of Amstelveen (and beyond) can follow artistic progress in real time! Moreover, the work created will be exhibited in the Cobra Museum the following two days (the Whitsun weekend). Both during the creation on Saturday and during the exhibition on Sunday and Monday, there will be an opportunity to buy a new work of art created during this weekend. Amstelveen En Plein Air will take place on Saturday 18 May (the creation day), Sunday 19 and Monday 20 May (Whitsun weekend) between 10 am and 5 pm.

Saturday 18 May
On this day, artists choose an outdoor spot within a designated area and set to work to create their unique artwork within one day. Should the weather be disappointing, arrangements have been made to work indoors (at Platform C and in Stadshart Amstelveen).

Sunday 19 and Monday 20 May (Pentecost weekend)
On these days, the works created will be exhibited in the recital hall of the Cobra Museum. This sales exhibition can be visited for FREE and there is an opportunity to buy work by the artists. The Cobra Museum is open from 10am to 5pm at Sandbergplein 1, Amstelveen.

Amsteleevn En Plein Air Map