Beelden aan Zee is a museum with modern sculptures right next to the beach of Scheveningen in the Netherlands.
Scheveningen is one of the best-known beaches in the Netherlands. When strolling the promenade you will notice the many sculptures on display. This is a hint of what lies just behind the promenade. At the museum Beelden aan Zee you can see a variety of sculptures with different styles. It is a hidden treasure within the dunes. The natural scenery and the sandy-colored walls of the museum provide the ideal background. Depending on the exhibitions, you might also see other types of art.
Even though I’m describing my experience based on the exhibitions in November 2020, the general take-away can give you an idea of what to expect at Museum Beelden aan Zee.
Exhibition: EIGEN+BEELD
The first exhibition you come upon is drawn from the museum’s own collection of modern sculptures.
It is divided into five parts:
- places to be (about monuments)
- Boundless (about non-western influences on Dutch sculptures)
- back to the future (about classicism)
- inner construction (about the abstract movement within modern sculpture)
- untitled (conceptual art)
Together they link the past, the present, and the future. As the division suggests, the meaning and styles of the sculptures are diverse. The descriptions of the artworks are really interesting to read. I was mostly drawn to the white full-body sculptures whose whole stature expressed emotions: I.S. with Beretta 92 Semi-automatic by Thom Puckey (number 37) and =(passage) by Antoine Berghs (number 79). Can you see the swan in the shadow of the kneeling man in the second picture above? And a special mention for the animal with two heads whose collection-number I don’t know.
This exhibition is either hit or miss. You’ll be intrigued by the art styles or you won’t be. Fortunately, it takes only one sculpture to have a wow-effect on you, for you to appreciate the exhibition as a whole.
You can visit this exhibition from 18 September 2020 until 7 March 2021.
Exhibition: A Mutating Story
Jacob van der Beugel presents human cells as a biological landscape. The four panels in the room show a story of mutation. They are accompanied by four vertical cylindrical forms with reinforcement steel that suggest a DNA spiral.
I found this exhibition quite fascinating. The use of concrete, ceramics, and steel makes you pay attention to the panels and cylindrical forms. After reading the description, you start to look for patterns.
Quote from the website of Beelden aan Zee: “His works are meticulously constructed by hand using ceramic elements, self-healing concrete, recycled concrete and mixed aggregate. Concrete is poured into enormous, structured moulds that are reinforced with steel bars, over strategically placed ceramic ‘cells’ that act as sign-posts to assist the viewer to ‘read’ the panels. Each individual ‘cell’ is carefully constructed with layers of clay, then fired to very high temperatures. This process permanently changes the structure of the ceramic ‘cell’ by fusing the clay particles together. Each panel is then refined, polished and finished with small rectangular ceramic blocks that suggest a point of ‘mutation’.”
You can visit this exhibition from 18 July 2020 until 7 February 2021.
Exhibition: On Sculpture
For the works on display, Carel Blotkamp uses brightly colored sequins. Bling to the max. The small plastic sequins are added as comments to works by artists he admires, including well-known artists like Mondriaan.
You can visit this exhibition from 28 November 2020 until 28 February 2021.
Outdoors
Outside you can see the more permanent collection. A combination of small and abstract sculptures, and full-sized sculptures meaning the world to even the casual visitor. There is one bigger outside area, and you can also visit the smaller courtyards that you can find in between the exhibitions.
Due to the many different art styles, there’s a sculpture for everyone. Personally, I thought the placement of the sculptures had a lot of effect on my appreciation. A placement directly in front of a sandy wall, or with the blue sky or the sea in the background added a contrast to the view that helped the sculpture to ‘shine’ more.
Experience
It might be because of the sculptures currently on display, but Beelden aan Zee didn’t give me a wow-feeling. While I do appreciate the meaning of many sculptures, I don’t find most of them aesthetically pleasing. I also prefer the sculptures outside because of the background provided by the sandy walls of the building, the beach, the blue ocean, and the sky. Most of the works in the exhibitions inside didn’t really appeal to me. Though I do think that if some of them were placed outside or against a different background, I would have liked them better.
Perhaps I didn’t set the right expectations for my visit. I was expecting something like the Seosomun History Museum in Seoul where every area of the building was optimized for the artworks on display. A perfect harmony where the building enhances the meaning of the artworks and the other way around. Instead, the sculptures in the exhibition halls – especially the EIGEN+BEELD exhibition – were simply residing.
Free: Fairytale Sculptures by the Sea
In contrast, the sculptures at the Scheveningen promenade (provided by Beelden aan Zee) brought a smile to my face. They were (morbidly) funny and made great use of their surroundings. The meaning was instantly clear. Perhaps that makes them less refined, but they were much better at lifting my mood.
You can find many more sculptures at the Scheveningen promenade as part of the public space exhibition (BLVD) of Beelden aan Zee.
How to get to Museum Beelden aan Zee
From The Hague Central train station, it takes about 15 minutes by car or half an hour by public transport to reach Museum Beelden aan Zee.
And once there, you can enjoy a visit to the beach of Scheveningen.
Location: Harteveltstraat 1, 2586 EL Den Haag, Netherlands
