2017 exhibitions

Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen Haarlem announces its 2017 exhibition programme in which “solemnity and mirth” appear in many forms and “transhistorical curating” takes centre stage. The year kicks off with new and site-specific work in solo exhibitions by Richard Tuttle, Evelyn Taocheng Wang and Kasper Bosmans, who take inspiration from the layered history of the Dutch Golden Age. Our summer exhibition illustrates how modern and contemporary artists apply Dada-esque humour as a tool and the exhibition The Art of Laughing examines the full breadth and depth of 17th century visual jokes in painting. Humour has its dark and sinister side and can express or lead to stereotyping. This becomes apparent in the exhibition Barbarians & Philosophers, where the relation between China and the Netherlands in the Golden Age is explored. As with the exhibition A Global Table, this presentation offers a “globalist view” of the Golden Age in regard to connections between the Netherlands and the rest of the world in those prosperous times. The extent to which those trade and colonial relationships effected everyday life and art is one of the many questions and insights that our exhibition programme addresses.

De Hallen Haarlem

Richard Tuttle
Kasper Bosmans: The Words and Days (mud gezaaid, free range)
Evelyn Taocheng Wang: Allegory of Transience
January 21–May 7, 2017

Poetry, sensitivity and elegance are notions that predominate in the first solo exhibitions of the new year. The museum has invited three artists to make new work inspired by the history (of Haarlem) and by the collections.

Richard Tuttle (Rahway, New Jersey, 1941) will create an installation in the Vleeshal that relates to the history of 17th century Haarlem, the Dutch city where damask and silk of the highest quality were produced.
Kasper Bosmans (Lommel, 1990) combines historical accounts and folklore tales with objects from the collection.
Evelyn Taocheng Wang (Chengdu, 1981) has made new installation and video work that focuses on the courtyard culture of Haarlem and her admiration for painting from the Golden Age.

Very diverse work that comes together through the artists’ common interest in the expressive possibilities of specific materials, which endows their work with a great tactile sensitivity.

Frans Hals Museum

Barbarians & Philosophers. The image of China in the Golden Age
Evelyn Taocheng Wang, New & Old: A Home Made Travel MV Series
March 25–August 20, 2017

The exhibition and accompanying book Barbarians & Philosophers (curated by Thijs Weststeijn and Menno Jonker) will shed more light on the cultural exchange between China and the Netherlands in the Golden Age.

As part of the exhibition, Chinese artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang will present her video work A Home Made Travel MV Series.

De Hallen Haarlem and Frans Hals Museum​

Now that’s something! Humour in 100 years of Dutch art
May 20–September 10, 2017

This comprehensive exhibition shows many animated examples of the impact of Dada on Dutch art in the past 100 years: paintings, graphics, photography, films and spatial works in a Dada-esque vein.

A Global Table, curated by Curatorial Fellow Abigail Winograd (Israel, 1983)
September 23, 2017–January 7, 2018

Point of departure for this transhistorical exhibition is the museum’s 17th century still life collection. A Global Table presents an alternative interpretation of these works. The still life is treated as a historic document. What colonial and trade relationships do the food products depicted in the still lifes represent? What do they say about the growing overseas power of the Republic and what were the social and cultural consequences of this Dutch urge for expansion? Winograd combines resplendent food still lifes of the Golden Age with works by contemporary artists who have an interest in globalisation and the practical effects this phenomenon has on daily life. With works by, among others: Felipe Arturo and Floris Claesz van Dijck.

Frans Hals Museum

The Art of Laughing. Humour in the Dutch Golden Age
November 11, 2017–March 18, 2018

Seldom have so many humorous paintings been produced as in the Dutch Golden Age. As prosperity and a new purchasing public pushed the demand for art sky high, artists concocted a feast of visual jokes. This exhibition will be the first overview of humour in 17th century painting. The presentation includes approximately 60 masterpieces from home and abroad by artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Judith Leyster.

About the Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen Haarlem:
The Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen Haarlem is internationally renowned, primarily thanks to its superb collection of 16th and 17th century-Haarlem masters, including the world’s largest collection of paintings by Frans Hals, as well as the museum’s leading exhibitions of contemporary art. The museum is housed in two enchanting, historic buildings. Its objective is to introduce visitors not only to the unprecedented proliferation of painting in the Dutch Golden Age, but also to the developments taking place in the world of contemporary visual arts. The transhistorical—connecting tradition to the present, old and new art—constitutes a particular focus of the exhibition programme.