THE HAGUE.- This summer Museum Beelden aan Zee focuses on contemporary Flemish sculpture. The exhibition is a visual spectacle, with work by both established and young, up-and-coming Flemish artists. The impulse for this theme is the celebration of 20 years of cultural cooperation between the Netherlands and Flanders in 2015. With this, the exhibition is a component of the BesteBuren (‘Dear Neighbours’) manifestation, a project with numerous cultural initiatives between the Netherlands and Flanders. The new summer exhibition of Museum Beelden aan Zee has been compiled by the renowned Flemish curator Stef van Bellingen, artistic director of WARP, the art platform for contemporary art in Flanders, in conjunction with Museum Beelden aan Zee.

The thirty-five participating artists employ various themes. Whereas some explore the limits of sculpture by making use of elements borrowed from theatre and performance art, others are primarily engaged with the human condition. In this, probably more traditional, side of Flemish sculpture, the human image recurrently returns, visualizing feelings of angst, doubt and uncertainty.

Other artists seek a more sensory perception of sculpture. A one-person prison that locks for a minute brings a physical experience. As does a transparent plastic in which the visitor assumes a sculptural pose that endures due to a vacuum: the person is ‘suspended’ in the sculpture and breathes through a plastic tube.

Analogous to Belgian surrealism, artists and curators play with the notion of scale in this exhibition. Sculpture of monumental size is on display along the Lange Voorhout in The Hague, while the human scale is presented in Museum Beelden aan Zee – and, in the last exhibition room, dozens of scale models and miniatures are on show.

The Vormidable exhibition is on display in Museum Beelden aan Zee and along the Lange Voorhout in The Hague. Besides these two main locations, there are also various satellite locations, including the Brakke Grond (Flemish Culture House) in Amsterdam and Raadhuis De Pauw in Wassenaar.

Artists: Philip Aguirre Y Otegui, Ruben Bellinkx, Peter Buggenhout, Jan De Cock, Caroline Coolen, Leo Copers, Anton Cotteleer, Johan Creten, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Peter De Cupere, Eva De Leener, Wim Delvoye, Fred Eerdekens, Nick Ervinck, Jan Fabre, Honoré d’O, Lawrence Malstaf, Philip Metten, Wesley Meuris, Sofie Muller, Nadia Naveau, Renato Nicolodi, Hans Op de Beeck, Panamarenko, Tinka Pittoors, Peter Rogiers, Kelly Schacht, Johan Tahon, Patrick Van Caeckenbergh, Luk Van Soom, Leon Vranken, Dirk Zoete