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Museum Beelden aan Zee: sculptures with an ocean view

Kim — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 15:00:00 +0000

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.

Coronavirus update All museums in the Netherlands are closed at the moment (20 January 2021 update).

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.

Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 – 17:00.

Tickets: 16 euro for adults and 8 euro for children.

Location: Harteveltstraat 1, 2586 EL Den Haag, Netherlands

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Farm Boerderij ‘t Geertje: a fun outing with kids near The Hague

Kim — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 15:00:00 +0000

If your kids love animals, what would be better than spending a few hours at the family-run farm Boerderij ‘t Geertje in the Netherlands?

Boerderij ‘t Geertje is a real organic production farm with goats, cows, and pigs. There are many fun activities for kids at this farm. And while young kids will enjoy, seeing, feeding, and petting the animals, adults will appreciate the store selling quality food products, many of them produced using goat milk and cow milk from the farm. Even though it is a small farm, there are many different types of animals present.

Things to do for kids

1) Feeding goats

Here your kids (and you) can feed the goats at the barn. At the restaurant, you can buy a bottle of liquid food for the young goats or bix (biscuits) for the adult goats. Your young ones will love this as they can pat the young goats, while the latter are preoccupied climbing all over you. Adult supervision is necessary. Protect your shoelaces, zippers, shawls, kid’s ears, and everything else that is an easy target.

2) Roasting marshmallows

Roast some marshmallows over a fire pit. Lots of fun in every season.

3) Watch (young) pigs

You can see the pigsty from the fire pit. This is no place to linger at unless you absolutely love pigs.

4) Play in the haystack

Let the kids jump and climb on the hay bales as if it is a regular playground with a slide.

5) Take a pony ride

Next to the hay barn are the ponies. For a fee, your kid can ride on a pony guided by someone from the farm.

6) Visit the cows

Pet the cows and watch them moo.

7) Sit on a tractor

Take a picture of your kid on a tractor while they beam with pride.

8) Wooden shoe adventure path

A small side excursion for the younger kids (fun until the age of six or seven I would say). For a fee of 50 euro cents per adult, you can walk on the wooden shoe (clogs) themed path over wooden bridges and balance beams through a small forest. With very young kids this could very well take you fifteen minutes, especially if they keep going back to walk on the wooden blocks and bridges one more time.

9) Restaurant and shop

At the time of writing this blog post, the restaurant is closed because of the coronavirus measures. When the restrictions are lifted you can once again enjoy a meal (mainly sandwiches and pancakes) at the restaurant. Until then, there is a less extensive menu for takeaway outside.

At the shop, you can buy all kinds of cheese and dairy products (homemade organic products from the very goats and cows you saw earlier), meat, and many other interesting products.

How to get to Boerderij ‘t Geertje

Boerderij ‘t Geertje is a 25 minutes’ drive from The Hague or a 45 minutes’ drive from Amsterdam. You can park your car for free at the farm or one of the other free parking lots nearby. If you don’t have a car, you can take the train to Zoetermeer Station and rent a bike from there (25 minutes’ bike ride).

Location: Geerweg 7, 2381 LT Zoeterwoude, Netherlands

If you’re looking for a fun family outing, then consider visiting Boerderij ‘t Geertje. Unless you live on a farm that is… then this might not be such a fun place to visit as it reminds you too much of home and work.

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Best Virtual Museum Tours in the Netherlands

Kim — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Even though the museums in the Netherlands are closed, you can still visit many museums at home, from the couch. Find out about the best Dutch Virtual Museum Tours.

Last week, April 20-26, was the Digital Dutch Museum Week 2020. During this week the ‘golden’ showpieces of museums in the Netherlands got special attention online. This year there was special attention for virtual museum tours and workshops that you can follow from home. Because of this Museum Week I discovered many new museums online!

Below I will share my favorite free virtual museum tours in the Netherlands.

1) Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam has an impressive collection of more than eight thousand showpieces. The digital offer is also well developed: experience the museum online with an audio tour and high-quality close-ups of paintings. This digital experience is available in English. It is one of the best.

2) Mauritshuis

You can do the online 3D Tour at The Mauritshuis in The Hague to see the world’s best Dutch and Flemish artworks from the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer.

3) Meet Vermeer

At Google Arts & Culture you can view all of Vermeer’s paintings in a virtual exhibition. The two Dutch museums you can explore are Mauritshuis and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

4) Dordrechts Museum

Another way to explore museums is via Google Street View. At the Dordrechts Museum you can see a varied collection with Dutch paintings from the 16th century until now. This museum has the biggest Ary Scheffer collection in the world.

5) Groninger Museum

Do the 360 degrees tour and explore the Chihuly exhibition at Groninger Museum. This museum has modern, colorful art from both well-known and lesser-known artists and offers exhibitions focusing on fashion, design, and photography.

6) Westfries Museum

Learn more about the Dutch Golden Age in the Westfries Museum in Hoorn. You can walk through a virtual 3D model of the museum to explore 27 rooms full of art in a beautiful building. Although the extra information is only available in Dutch, it is still worth a visit.

7) Rijksmuseum van Oudheden

At the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, you can learn about the fascinating culture of the Egyptians, Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans using Google Street View. Inside this museum, you can see the sister temple of the Temple of Debod that I visited in Madrid.

8) Rijksmuseum Twenthe

Explore contemporary, modern, and classical art at Rijksmuseum Twenthe. At the museum, you can see the art of Breitner, Breughel, Ruisdael and Redon, Jongkind, Monet, and many others. Unfortunately, close-ups are not possible and the information is in Dutch only.

9) CODA Museum

Google Earth Art with Agnes Martin. The work of Agnes Martin is part of the exhibition The Future is Female – Love Letters at CODA Museum. While the information is in Dutch only, you can simply copy the coordinates listed on this page to Google Earth (in Chrome) to find the abstract art Agnes Martin wants to share with us. If you are looking for something different!

10) Museum Huis Doorn

The last one! Explore the estate of Huis Doorn in a virtual panoramic tour. You can scroll through the photo spots and look around. No walking tour unfortunately and the info is in Dutch only, but the pictures are high quality and give you the feeling you are outside exploring the estate.

What’s your favorite virtual museum tour? Where should I go next?

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Children’s Book Museum in The Hague: a cultural playground for kids

Kim — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 15:00:00 +0000

Take your kids to the Children’s Book Museum in The Hague for a wonderful day in this literary playground.

There are fun things to do for kids until the age of 12. It is a museum, yes, but a very playful one. At the museum, you and your kids (or cousins in my case) can explore many rooms dedicated to characters from famous Dutch and international children’s books. To name a few: I am Frog, Elmer the Patchwork Elephant, Tow-truck Pluck, and Miffy (“Nijntje”).

But don’t mistake this for a simple playground. The kids will learn a lot and as they get older they will discover new things to do. While the youngest (pre-school going age) will learn to interact with objects, use colors and build things, older kids will use these objects to create words and stories.

I am Frog

The youngest kids will spend most of their time in the playroom based upon the books about Frog and his friends by Max Velthuijs. My cousins of one year old and nearly four years old loved this room.

Kids can go fishing on a boat, walk on soft water, build a virtual bench by sawing virtual planks and many more things. There are tents and alcoves to explore and there is plenty of room for running around.

Older brothers or sisters will notice the letters written on the fish and can form words with their haul.

ABC with the animals

Discover letters, sounds, and rhyme while crawling like a caterpillar, balancing on ice blocks on the north pole, supporting firemen or pimping an elephant.

With Elmer the Patchwork Elephant kids learn about colors. They can hang colored blocks on the elephant matching the colors while hoping another kid won’t pull its tail to bring all blocks down. Imagine how much the other kid will enjoy that.

Play hide and seek in the tall grass with the cat Dikkie Dik or other kids.

Help firemen man the fire hose. There is a nice link with the tent in the I am Frog exhibition here: when the story told in the tent mentions fire, you run to the firemen room to get the helmets and then back to the tent to continue the story. Or lose that train of thought and just go fishing with the helmets. Must be safer.

Papiria

For older kids (7 and up) there is the challenge to defeat the Ink Gobbler eating all the letters from the books. Kids can create their own characters and stories, be it a poem, a comic or a rap, to win the battle.

Recommendation (language skills)

The Papiria exhibition is not offered in English, so only bring your kids there if they have a good command of Dutch.

Because of this I only recommend visiting the Children’s Book Museum with kids under the age of 8, unless your kids speak Dutch. The rooms for younger kids are not language heavy and will be fun for anyone visiting the Netherlands.

How to get to the Children’s Book Museum in The Hague

The Children’s Book Museum is right next to The Hague Central Train Station, which is less than an hour away from Amsterdam. Address: Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5, The Hague, Netherlands (Google Maps)

Opening hours

Tuesday – Sunday: 10:30 – 17:00. Check their website for closing days.

Tickets

Age 0-1: free
Age 2-6: € 6,50
Age 7-18: €7,50
Adults: € 9,00

Entree is free with a Museum card or Rotterdam Pass and you get a 50% discount with a Den Haag Uitpas. Credit cards are not accepted, so make sure to bring cash if you don’t have a local bank account.

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