Tentoonstellingen Archive - Museum Cobra

Archives: Tentoonstellingen

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

The New Mother Sculptures is large, mysterious contemporary sculpture exhibition specially organized by artist Ad de Jong. The upper room of the museum transforms into one open space with 40 contemporary sculptures by Dutch artists on a specially inlaid loam floor and with a soundscape.

Ad de Jong
Curator and visual artist De Jong has worked with several major, museum institutions and created exhibitions such as BeeldHalWerk, Present Forever and All Is Giving. In the exhibition The New Mother Sculptures, he experiments with our sensory experience and sense of a future. The works by the participating artists were selected by De Jong based on specific, visual qualities, focusing on the differences between the sculptures.

Like Goethe
The sculptures come from the studios of talented young artists. There are tapestries, conjuring constructions made of iron, a Canta with nitrous oxide cartridges, colored glass bricks, plastic truck tarps, structures made of root tissues, an infinite bookcase and more. Each image forms its own specific physical and spiritual world, sometimes cursing and screaming, sometimes loving. A world that does not want to be rationally understood but wishes us to look, feel and “be”. Move through the exhibition as Goethe moved through nature.

Physical experience
Created by artists from different generations, the sculptures present a contrarian view of our times. They offer a direct physical experience, away from words and away from the light of our phones. Back to physical reality recalling the forces within yourself, to feel, think and act for yourself. In times of abstraction and disconnection, when our attention is pulled away from the reality we live in, it is good to connect with the physicality of the living world. Away from the mechanistic view that declares everything around us lifeless.

Loam
All the sculptures stand on a newly laid, rough loam floor of 1000 M2. Farmers used to pound clay into a floor in their stables and barns. In this loam floor are scented patterns of seeds and an imaginary map of the native plants and trees of the area around the museum is visible with color. The loam floor connects our bodies with the sculptures, light and soundscape.

Wandering around
Take off your shoes and experience the floor with your bare feet. Let your whole body and all your senses resonate with the space and the sculptures. We invite you to wander around and if you wish, you can lie down on a special bed to dream away for a while. All the sculptures represent, each in their own visual way, a universal quest into the unknown space of our future. Our future may be far away or perhaps unimaginable. What is around us now in this loamy space, what is nearby and resonates with our inner world?

Turn off your phone and wander through this special, mystical space for as long as you like. Drink a glass of water at the observation tower and see what happens to your senses. Come see and experience for yourself.

Participating artists: Maria Roosen, Hilke Walraven, Corine Zomer, HW Werther, Annegret Kellner, Yair Callender, Kristine Hymoller, Hester Oerlemans, Henk Visch, Sachi Miyachi, Theophile Blandet, Lisa Sebestikova, Saar Scheerlings, Maya Berkhof, Maaike Kramer, WONNE, Job Koelewijn, Elena Agiolo, 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, Femke Dekker, Maartje Korstanje, Afra Eisma, Yiu Ellen and 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, VSB, Plantenverhalen, MAM, De Bloeiwijzer, Het Palet, Buurtkamer

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

 

Naturally Amstelveen

zaterdag 25 mei 2024 t/m zondag 16 jun 2024

Deel:

NATURALLY AMSTELVEEN

Amstelveen’s nature is at its finest in spring. This was the reason for Visit Amstelveen to organise a photo contest in cooperation with Canon. While exploring polders, parks and the Amsterdam Forest, over 500 nature photos were taken. You will be able to enjoy the most beautiful photos here at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art.

The winners from the categories “adults” and “children up to 12 years” were selected by a professional jury made up of Bas Meelker (landscape photographer), Tom Zwerver (nature-education producer at Amsterdam Forest) and Moïsha Kruijer (collection manager at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art). In addition, we have two audience winners. The winners will be presented on a photo panel specially designed for the occasion.

Take delight in these beautiful photos of well-known and lesser-known Amstelveen spots, and be inspired to have a taste of nature for yourself!


Image: Thijs Friederich

Open depot

Now on view

Deel:

Art from the collection 

Museum Cobra has an own art collection since the founding in 1995. This collection has now grown to over 2000 objects. The vast majority of this collection is in the depot, an art storage facility not open to the public where it is preserved under optimal conditions. The Open depot presents parts of the extensive collection on display here. It is not a permanent exhibition but a rotating, dynamic presentation. In addition to making the collection accessible, it also offers a look behind the scenes. New acquisitions and collaborations will be given space to be shown here.    

The museum’s collection policy is based on Cobra art. Besides the official Cobra members, there is also an emphasis on the artists who collaborated with them or were influenced by them. They can also be seen in this changing presentation. In addition to paintings and sculptures, the collection includes work on paper, ceramics, textiles, photography, films and archival material.  

Within the Cobra movement, besides unanimity, there are also contradictions and differences of opinion among its members. These different views and visions create a wide range of artistic expression. The Open depot gives visitors room for new comparisons and connections.  

Want to learn more about Cobra? Click here.


Foto: Niels Vis

Jeroen Krabbé 80 – 8 decades in pictures

vrijdag 15 nov 2024 t/m zondag 26 jan 2025

Deel:

EXPECTED AUTUMN 2024

On 5 December 2024, Dutch actor, film director, documentary maker, painter and illustrator Jeroen Krabbé will reach the age of eighty. Museum Cobra will celebrate this autumn with a presentation of eight paintings, each telling a decade of his life. The presentation will be framed by drawings and paintings from Krabbé’s early artistic development to his most recent work.

Jeroen Krabbé comes from a family of artists. Inspired by his grandfather Heinrich Martin Krabbé and father Maarten Krabbé, he has been drawing and painting since childhood and seems destined to follow in their footsteps. However, he chose the acting profession, but immediately after his international breakthrough in Soldaat van Oranje in 1977, he enrolled at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Krabbé’s style develops from hyper-realistic minuscule works through portraits, Pop Art and fierce expressionism to colourful landscapes. The faraway countries he visits for his work as an actor also pop up regularly in his oeuvre. All these elements come together in the eight paintings that shed light on his life and development as a man, actor and artist.

Diana Blok – I challenge you to love me

vrijdag 31 mei 2024 t/m zondag 29 sep 2024

Deel:

The exhibition I challenge you to love me presents an overview of the work of photographer and artist Diana Blok (Uruguay, 1952). Blok was born in Montevideo and lived in Colombia and Guatemala. She studied sociology in Mexico City. In 1974, she emigrated to Amsterdam and developed into a highly successful photographer and artist. With her work, Diana explores topics such as identity, gender, sexual diversity and culture. The exhibition can be seen from 31 May to 29 September 2024.

About Diana Blok
Born in Montevideo (Uruguay, 1952) to a Dutch father and an Argentine mother, Blok grew up in several Latin American countries. In the 1970s, she settles in Amsterdam. There the journey of discovery into her identity begins. A self-taught portrait photographer, she first turns her gaze to herself, visualizing myths and dreams and capturing forms of kinship between people. Blok recognizes her own story in those of others. In countries where there is only one sexual norm and every other behavior is suppressed, she creates penetrating portraits. She focuses mainly on portraying people for whom gender, (cultural) identity and sexual preferences are not fixed. In a sense, all of her projects are embedded in forms of collaboration. Collaborations with other artists, with writers, with actors and above all: with the portrayed.

 

Self-portrait, 1982, Diana Blok

Audio fragments
In the exhibition, audio fragments accompany several works. In these 8 fragments, Diana Blok talks from her studio into what stories lie behind the photos. Each audio fragment looks back at a photo from a particular period or project.

1. Self-portrait with Flor
2. Mother and sons
3. Leda and swan
4. Male wet nurse in Romeo & Juliet – Sjoerd Didden
5. Ay dios Curaçao | Corazón | Curazion
6. Ketje
7. Living leaves
8. Priestesses

Pierre Verger – The One That I Am Not

vrijdag 31 mei 2024 t/m zondag 29 sep 2024

Deel:

From 31 May to 29 September 2024, Museum Cobra will show a selection of works from the extensive oeuvre of photographer Pierre Verger (Paris 1902 – Salvador 1996). Pierre Verger was born in Paris and eventually found his home in the Brazilian city of Salvador. The Pierre Verger – The One That I am Not is a celebration of his photographic legacy, his heart and his ceaseless quest for self-discovery. The exhibition features more than 160 works he made during various trips. This is the first time a solo exhibition has been shown in the Netherlands.

“I started travelling, not so much out of the desire to do ethnographic research or reportage, but out of the need to distance myself, to free myself and escape from the environment in which I had lived until then and whose prejudices and rules of behaviour did not make me happy…. However, the feeling that a vast world existed did not leave my mind and the desire to see and photograph it took me to other horizons.”

About Pierre Fatumbi Verger
Pierre Fatumbi Verger (Paris, 1902 – Salvador, 1996) was a French photographer, anthropologist, botanist and writer who lived most of his life in the city of Salvador, Brazil. In 1932, after the death of his mother, he learned photography and made the decision to live a traveling and non-conformist life. In the fourteen years that follow, he photographs in many places around the world. In 1946 he settles in Brazil but continues to travel, especially to Benin, where in 1953 he is ritually initiated into the Yoruba religion and symbolically reborn as Fatumbi. Through his work and books, he makes an important contribution to general knowledge about the African diaspora. From a traditional anthropological point of view, he does not maintain sufficient distance from the people he studies, an absolute condition for the field, and becomes “indigenous.” That is, he resides among the people he studies and becomes, as it were, one of them. All he wants is to live with the people with whom he feels comfortable, not to study them, but simply to observe them, listen to them and participate in their lives.

Pierre Verger. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1950s © Pierre Verger Foundation