Program 2025
Next year, the Beelden aan Zee museum will once again offer an ambitious exhibition program, featuring both big names from art history and innovative, multidisciplinary artists. In March, the exhibition Ana Oosting – Breaking Waves by Dutch artist and neurobiologist Ana Oosting will open, where art and science come together. Her new installation, consisting of ten large, floating creatures, is inspired by the wave patterns of the North Sea. In June, the international exhibition Ryan Gander X Edgar Degas – Pas de Deux will open. Visitors will see a dialogue between the iconic sculpture Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans by Edgar Degas and the contemporary reinterpretations by British artist Ryan Gander, who frees the ballerina from her pedestal. His playful ballerinas, never before shown together, challenge us to think about how we experience art over time. Throughout the year, exhibitions by Emo Verkerk, Khaled Dawwa, Tania Kovats, and Erwin de Vries will take place in the other museum halls.
Main Hall Program
Ana Oosting - Breaking Waves. March 14 to June 9, 2025
Next spring, the Beelden aan Zee museum will present the first solo museum exhibition of Ana Oosting (1985). Oosting is not only an artist but also a neurobiologist. This unique combination characterizes the core of her work. She views the world through the lens of both art and science. Her research-based and site-specific installations invite us to explore non-human perspectives. They have an immersive character and encourage the viewer to actively connect with the work.
Especially for the museum, Ana Oosting creates a site-specific installation of ten large creatures that seem to float effortlessly through the air. Through hyper-precise folding work, the artist brings them to life, embodying the idea that even non-living matter can act, rather than merely being subjected to human will. In the space, an enchanting seascape unfolds that may seem familiar. This familiarity is no coincidence. Ana Oosting worked with scientists to mimic the wave patterns of the nearby North Sea. This is accompanied by an eerie melody - perhaps reminiscent of a whale's song, the whisper of the coastal wind, or the thundering sound of waves crashing against the shore. Curator: Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen
More information: https://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/ana-oosting
Ryan Gander X Edgar Degas - Pas de Deux. June 20, 2025, to January 4, 2026
From June, the Beelden aan Zee museum will present an exhibition that brings the work of British visual artist Ryan Gander (1976) and French painter and sculptor Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917) into dialogue. Since 2008, Gander has been working on a conceptual series in which he reinterprets the world-famous sculpture Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (1880-1881) by Degas and places it in a contemporary context. With his sculptures, Gander frees Degas' fourteen-year-old dancer from her pedestal and places her in various scenarios. The exhibition at Beelden aan Zee shows Gander's series of 22 ballerinas for the first time, and moreover in direct connection with Degas' famous sculpture.
Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans marks the transition from classical to modern sculpture. With the image of the young ballerina in a modest and realistic pose, the French master not only captured the beauty of ballet life but also the tension between the discipline of ballet and the vulnerability of youth. More than a century later, Ryan Gander reflects on Degas' work with a series of ballerina images in unexpected or everyday situations, with the most poetic titles. His reinterpretations raise questions about the idealization of the ballerina and the role of art in presenting reality versus fiction. Brigitte Bloksma, director of the Beelden aan Zee museum and curator of the exhibition, emphasizes: "The relationship between Degas' original work and Gander's approach offers a fascinating reflection on the perception of the ballerina and the subtle boundaries between art and everyday life. It shows how artists over time deal with themes such as movement, youth, and vulnerability."
Ryan Gander X Edgar Degas – Pas de Deux is Ryan Gander's first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. The exhibition takes place thanks to a collaboration with public and private collections worldwide that lend their sculptures by Ryan Gander, and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which grants the special loan of Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (1880 – 1881/1922) by Degas. The Beelden aan Zee museum has commissioned Ryan Gander to create a new ballerina, Waiting for timefall, or Living in a time where everything is possible, but nothing can happen, the last work in his series. A publication accompanies the exhibition, including a contribution from the artist. Curator: Brigitte Bloksma
More information: https://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/ryan-gander-x-edgar-degas
Cabinet/Sea Hall Program
Emo Verkerk. March 14 to June 9, 2025
Painter, draftsman, and sculptor Emo Verkerk (Amsterdam, 1955) is one of the most important Dutch artists of recent decades. He is best known for his painted portraits of writers, philosophers, musicians, and visual artists he admires. Often, a photo, along with the impressions and associations it evokes in the artist, served as the starting point, in addition to reading biographies. Although Verkerk has moved away from the traditional portrait with a realistic depiction, they still possess a striking resemblance. This also applies to the sculptures he has been making since 2000: painted assemblages he prefers to call 'objects.' For these, he cleverly uses all kinds of household materials that he knows how to combine in surprising ways.
Verkerk throws away little; materials are reused, and remnants of previous sculptures find a place in new objects that are literally and figuratively layered. Sometimes the artist doesn't get it right immediately and continues to 'tinker' with his work, as he himself says. A sculpture can easily have three or four different versions before the right form is found. However, no work shows a definitive endpoint; it always has something of a possible variant. With this range of possibilities and associations, Emo Verkerk tries to make the viewer experience more than just the object. For the exhibition, works have been selected from his studio that have hardly been exhibited before. Curator: Joost Bergman.
More information: https://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/emo-verkerk
Tania Kovats – Oceanic. June 20, 2025, to January 4, 2026
Tania Kovats (Brighton, 1966) creates sculptures, drawings, and large-scale time-based installations that explore our experience and understanding of the natural world. She is intrigued by themes at the intersection of nature and culture, such as geological processes and growth patterns, and investigates the relationship between human experience and nature, the Cosmos, and the elements. In recent years, Kovats has taken the element of water as her central subject in her work; the seas and oceans, river systems, maritime culture, floods, and tides, necessarily touching on socio-political and environmental issues.
Kovats is a renowned British visual artist. Oceanic, her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, offers an extensive overview of her versatile artistic practice. The exhibition showcases her ongoing fascination with the sea, water, and the environment and evokes a deep sense of connection with nature. Central to the presentation are her monumental sculptures, The Divers, her ceramic and textile works, and her drawings. Curator: Brigitte Bloksma
More information: https://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/tania-kovats
South Hall Program
Khaled Dawwa - Voici mon cœur !. April 4 to November 2, 2025
In the context of eighty years of Freedom, the Beelden aan Zee museum presents in 2025 the installation Voici mon cœur ! (Here is my heart), 2018-2022, by the exiled Syrian artist Khaled Dawwa (1985). This six-meter-long contemporary war monument from the Mucem collection in Marseille takes the form of a ruined facade wall in a violence-ravaged Damascus. Khaled Dawwa created the work from unfired clay, giving it an extra vulnerable appearance.
The exhibition of Voici mon cœur ! aligns with the broader theme of the commemorative year, where local stories and diverse perspectives take center stage. Like traditional war monuments, Voici mon cœur also serves an educational function, acting as a means to create awareness and stimulate dialogue about the impact of war and the importance of freedom. Dawwa's monument bridges the past and present in that context. While we reflect on the liberation of the Netherlands eighty years ago, his work offers a contemporary perspective on freedom and unfreedom. It reminds us that the struggle for freedom and human dignity does not end with a historical date but is an ongoing process. The exhibition is accompanied by a documentary about the artist. Curator: Dick van Broekhuizen
More information: https://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/khaled-dawwa
Erwin de Vries. November 7, 2025, to March 1, 2026
The Beelden aan Zee museum presents a retrospective exhibition featuring works by the Surinamese artist Erwin de Vries (Paramaribo, 1929 - 2018) within the historical context of fifty years of Suriname's independence – an event that will be celebrated next autumn with various activities in the Netherlands and Suriname.
Erwin de Vries moved to the Netherlands at the age of eighteen, where he studied at the art academy in The Hague and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He quickly made a name for himself as a sculptor and painter. De Vries is the artist of the National Monument to the Slavery Past in Oosterpark in Amsterdam, where the keti koti (chains broken) commemoration takes place annually on July 1 in memory of the abolition of slavery in Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean. After his death, he left behind an extensive and interesting oeuvre, ranging from expressionistically designed sculptures and striking portraits to abstract-expressionist, figurative paintings and drawings. The colorful palette of his paintings reflects his Caribbean background and source of inspiration. De Vries' art testifies to an enormous zest for life: earthly life and people, with an emphasis on eroticism and women, are central to him.
The exhibition particularly highlights his sculptures, chosen from various institutional and private collections, most of which have not been publicly shown before. Curators: Joost Bergman and Hanneke Oosterhof
More information: https://www.beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/erwin-de-vries
After Hours
After Hours is an evening program among the sculptures with a dual purpose: to provide a platform for young Hague talents and to introduce new audiences to culture, especially sculpture. In 2025, the museum collaborates with six different partners on a program featuring sound art, theater, dance, music, poetry, and installations. DJs spin records in the museum café, and there are flash tours through the museum and workshops in the Gipsotheek.
Program and entrance tickets: www.bazafterhours.nl.
Museum Beelden aan Zee
Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague is the place in the Netherlands where sculpture, architecture, and nature come together, with an exhibition and public program where tradition and innovation meet. The iconic museum building, located in the dunes, hosts approximately ten exhibitions per year.
Image: detail studio Ana Oosting, Studio Gerrit Schreurs
