Archives: Tentoonstellingen

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.

This exhibition as part of Open Ateliers offers an overview of recent work by 53 Amstelveen artists working in a variety of disciplines, including sculpture, painting, ceramics, glass and photograph. This exhibition offers an introduction to the practice of these creators who participate in the Open Ateliers. From abstract to figurative and from sculpture to textile, this presentation shows the diversity of techniques, subjects and styles of artists in Amstelveen in one overview.   

Atelierroute
For more than thirty years this biennial studio route has been organized. Professional artists from Amstelveen open their studios to the public for a whole weekend. In addition, there are selected locations where artists collectively exhibit their work. This is an opportunity to get acquainted with their work and to get a unique look behind the scenes of their artistic practice.   

 On June 17 and 18 between 11.00h and 17.00h the artists’ studios will be open to the public. Naturally, the studio route also offers the opportunity to buy art directly from the artists themselves.

For more information about the atelierroute go to openateliersamstelveen.nl

Jeroen Krabbé and Annefie van Itterzon present children’s drawings at the Cobra Museum. This exhibition fits seamlessly into our programme of summer exhibitions: Freedom without Borders and The Other Picasso, which are on show at the Cobra Museum at the same time.

Actor, painter and art programme maker Jeroen and Annefie van Itterzon selected 40 children’s drawings that give a beautiful impression of how children around the world make drawings. Two of his own children’s drawings are added to these. This selection comes from a collection of over 900 drawings collected between 1983 and 2021 by art educator Annefie van Itterzon. Last year, Van Itterzon donated this unique collection to the Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE).

The uninhibited child
This exhibition not only offers a fascinating insight into the drawing art of children worldwide, but is also a tribute to their uninhibited and spontaneous nature. Children are not concerned with perspective and form, which is why their drawings are so direct, original and pure. Artists like Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky and the members of Cobra therefore looked to children’s drawings for inspiration. It is a joy to shine a spotlight on this wonderful art.

Let’s draw!
Children can also do some drawing of their own at Atelier CoBrA on Wednesdays and Sundays. Together, these drawings form a huge collage artwork that continues to grow throughout the exhibition and can be seen by all visitors in the museum. It is exciting to see how children can express their creativity and contribute to this exhibition with their own artwork.

For this exhibition, we would like to thank the National Cultural Heritage Collection for its support.

HOME Art Project is an ongoing art project for all residents of Amstelveen and their 139 different nationalities. Stephanie Rhode photographs people from Amstelveen with a white house made of wool. These photos are on display in this pre-exhibition. In doing so, she asks the questions, “What does HOME mean to you? Is it your friends and family, personal belongings or is it perhaps a place in nature or a certain environment that makes you feel at home? In short, what do you associate with HOME?”

Stephanie Rhode studied at the AKI Academy of Art & Design ArtEZ in Enschede in the 1980s. In 1989 she graduated in monumental design. She followed several Artist in Residence, including in Japan, Peru and China. Her work has been exhibited in the Netherlands and abroad and is known for her ephemeral art projects and the universal theme of “home”. Curiosity about other cultures and countries has greatly fueled her work as a visual artist. In this way, she deals with social issues that are visualized in public spaces, museums or in nature. Her work takes various forms, including installations, video, performances, photography and drawings.

When Stephanie Rhode heard that Amstelveen alone has over 139 different nationalities, she realized that this art project could also be carried out ‘at home’ in Amstelveen. After all, about 75% of the non-Dutch nationalities living or residing in our country can be found in Amstelveen.

The art project does not only consist of a photograph but also the feelings and thoughts of the participants. The museum visitors only see the photographed person from the back and thus look along with the person. This perspective is partly inspired by paintings by the German painter Caspar David Friedrich. For Stephanie Rhode, they are “soul paintings”, because the viewer experiences something about the emotional world of the person depicted. Her series of “soul pictures” tells something about the home of the person photographed, without having to spell it out in words.

In her search for interaction and exchange, she has increasingly broadened her view as an artist. Where she initially interacted with those who offered themselves for granted, over time she has sought out those who do not routinely encounter art. She noticed an increasing curiosity about how people from outside her living environment, from other backgrounds, cultures or countries, view her themes and life questions. Different art projects, different experiences and interactions arise each time because of the exchange with different people from different parts of the world. These bring out both the similarities and diversity of people in her work.

After the exhibition at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, the project will also be on display at the Schouwburg in Amstelveen. The final exhibition will take place in the fall of 2023 when she has been able to find and photograph all 139 nationalities. With thanks to Gemeente Amstelveen and Stichting Stokroos.

An animal, a night, a cry
Dutch Cobra artists from the collection

An animal, a night, a cry is an exhibition of works created by Dutch members of the Cobra movement from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. The exhibits are either from the permanent collection of the Cobra Museum or are works on long-term loan to the museum.

Following the repression and deprivations of the Second World War, the Dutch Cobra artists craved artistic and intellectual freedom, spontaneity, and novelty. They sought inspiration in forms of art foreign to the academic tradition, such as children’s drawings, folk art and outsider art, and they experimented with new materials and forms. Although they did not aspire to a single communal style, their pictures amounted to a distinctive Cobra world full of colourful birds, fabulous beings, people and heavenly  bodies. Constant formulated it as follows: ‘A painting is not a structure of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of these together.’   

The name of the Cobra movement (1948-1951) is composed of the initials of the cities of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, where many of the artists lived. The Dutch members included  Karel Appel, Corneille, Constant, Jan Nieuwenhuijs, Anton Rooskens, Theo Wolvecamp, Eugène Brands and the poet-painter Lucebert. These young artists were keen to interact and exchange ideas with kindred spirits outside the Netherlands. When Appel, Corneille and Constant visited Denmark in 1948, they felt an immediate kinship with the mentality of Danish artists and a shared interest in experimentation, folk art, and spontaneous artistic expression. Work by these Danish artists is currently on show on the first floor of the museum. But all was not unanimity within the movement. There were also differences and conflicts of opinion between the members. Despite these, Cobra’s ideas and vitality would continue to reverberate through the art world for a long time to come.