iRijksmuseumMuseumkwartier
Carel Visser in the Rijksmuseum Gardens
This exhibition has ended.
Thirteen monumental steel sculptures by Carel Visser (1928-2015), the most influential Dutch sculptor of the twentieth century, brought together for the first time in the museum's free-to-enter gardens.
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On a grey March morning in 2017, art historian Ludo van Halem found two Carel Visser sculptures at the back of a transport company's yard in Wateringen. Signal 1 and 2 had flanked the entrance of the Postgiro office in The Hague until the building went in 2000, and waited there for 17 years. Restored, they have stood in the Rijksmuseum Gardens since 2024. They are why this show exists.
You spot the rest from a distance: steel shapes between the trees. There are thirteen works in iron and bronze, some eight metres tall, gathered for the first time from museums, private collections and town squares in Utrecht, Apeldoorn and Amersfoort. A working model of Flying Fish seems to float in the atrium.
8weekly gave it four stars, regretting only that the small version of Auschwitz (1957), an unbuilt monument design, is here rather than the large one. Entry is free, the gardens open daily 9:00 to 18:00 and are wheelchair accessible, and it closes on 25 October.
Look for
Jacob's Ladder
Look for eight repeating sickle shapes of black-lacquered iron winding round a central axis like a staircase, eight metres tall beside a lone tree of the same height.
Signal 1 and 2
Two lead-skinned guardians from 1964 that once flanked a Hague office entrance and spent 17 years forgotten in a transport yard.
Two Birds
An early work standing in the pond, where the open space between the two birds matters as much as the iron.
Gat (Hole)
Two horizontal and two vertical iron beams frame an empty hole, and a sign asks you to decide whether it frames nothing or everything.
Like a Plant
A plant-like form cut out of iron, which Visser and critic Carel Blotkamp called a 'graven image', after the ban in Exodus.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You want to stay dry: almost every sculpture stands outdoors in the gardens.
Also at Rijksmuseum
On now nearby
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Image credits
7
- RijksmuseumTrougnouf (Benoit Brummer) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
- Yoshitoshi. Master of the MoonCourtesy of Van Gogh Museum
- Whistler. Dandy and DisruptorCourtesy of Van Gogh Museum
- Moco MuseumC messier, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Van Gogh MuseumSteven Lek, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Stedelijk Museum AmsterdamJohn Lewis Marshall, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museum Van LoonRijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0