The main exhibitions and fairs of 2026 in the Kingdom of the Netherlands
- Culture Multure
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
This year, major museums are focusing on 20th-century and contemporary art. Leading museum institutions are working not only for effect but also for meaning: antiquity and modernism, color and identity, the influence of the past on present trends and movements. This article highlights the year's key projects, which are truly worth considering.
Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum
Metamorphoses
February 6 – May 25, 2026
The exhibition centers on Ovid's Metamorphoses as one of the most important texts of the European imagination. Over 80 works—from the Renaissance to contemporary art—show how themes of transformation, punishment, desire, and the loss of form have become the visual language of different eras.
This is not an illustration of a myth, but an exploration of the very idea of transformation – physical, social, moral.
Willem de Kooning at work
October 9, 2026 – January 17, 2027
One of the largest exhibitions dedicated to the creative process of Willem de Kooning—a figure without whom it is impossible to imagine the history of abstract expressionism.
Some 120 works reveal the artist not as a creator of "gestures," but as a thinker, constantly returning to the canvas, questioning, destroying, and reassembling form. The exhibition demonstrates why de Kooning remains a key figure in 20th-century art and continues to influence the language of contemporary painting.
Van Gogh Museum
Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh's Color
February 13 – May 17, 2026
Yellow is seen here not as Van Gogh's "signature color," but as a complex cultural code of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The exhibition traces how yellow functioned in the art, science, and visual culture of the era, both as a symbol of light and hope and as the color of anxiety, instability, and inner tension. The project expands our familiar understanding of Van Gogh, situating him within a broader artistic and intellectual context.
Stedelijk
Yayoi Kusama
September 12, 2026 – January 17, 2027
A major museum exhibition of Yayoi Kusama, one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Behind the recognizable motifs of repetition and infinity lies a much more complex conversation: about mental experience, control, the body, and vulnerability. The Stedelijk presents Kusama not as an "Instagram icon," but as a radical artist for whom personal experience became the foundation of her artistic method.
Stedelijk
DANH VO ΠΝΕΥ͂ΜΑ (ἜΛΙΣΣΑ
February 14 - August 2, 2026
A solo exhibition by Danh Vo πνεῦμα (Ἔλισσα) —one of the key artists of his generation, whose art is shaped by the intersection of personal biography, collective memory, and political history. Danh Vo is a Vietnamese-Danish artist who fled Vietnam with his family as refugees after the war in the late 1970s. The family was rescued by a Danish ship, after which Danh Vo grew up and was educated in Denmark. This experience of forced migration and living between cultures became the foundation of his artistic practice.
Working with installations, objects, and fragments of the past—from antique components and religious relics to parts of monuments and found materials—Dan Vo explores how power, war, faith, and the experience of homelessness shape human relationships and identity. His practice is structured as a choreography of objects in space, where meaning emerges not from individual objects but from the connections between them and the viewer.
H'ART Museum
American Identities: David Levinthal and Chicano Prints
February 13 – September 6, 2026
The exhibition juxtaposes two different visual perspectives on American culture and history.
David Levinthal's photographs, based on staging and working with mass imagery, engage in a dialogue with the graphic art of Chicano Prints—an artistic language of political struggle and self-identification. The project explores how national myths are formed and who has the right to retell them.
Hague
Mauritshuis
Thyssen-Bornemisza ❤️ Mauritshuis
October 15, 2026 -
A rare exchange of masterpieces between the Mauritshuis and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
The exhibition focuses not on chronology or schools, but on themes of human emotion, private life, and the everyday. The old masters are presented here not as "classics," but as living conversationalists, discussing topics that remain relevant today.
Kunstmuseum Den Haag
London Calling
February 14 – June 7, 2026
One of the most significant exhibitions of the year. For the first time in the Netherlands, British painting from the second half of the 20th century—a school that radically changed the concept of figurative art—is being presented on such a large scale.
Francis Bacon, an artist of existential horror and bodily vulnerability; Lucian Freud, a ruthless chronicler of human flesh; David Hockney, a reformer of gaze and space; Paula Rego, a voice of personal and political memory.
The exhibition shows London as a centre of artistic ideas, where art has become a way to talk about fear, the body, identity and freedom.
Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Fashion Galore
July 4, 2026 – January 3, 2027
A jubilee exhibition celebrating the 75th anniversary of the museum's fashion collection. Featuring over 50,000 items—from 17th-century formal attire to contemporary designer pieces.
This is the history of clothing as a social and cultural document: about the body, status, gender and time, told through form and material.
Otterlo
Kröller-Müller Museum
Isaac Israel's Journey
April 24 – August 30, 2026
The exhibition is dedicated to Isaac Israels, one of the key, but often underestimated, representatives of Dutch Impressionism.
His paintings capture the movement of modern life: cities, resorts, streets, moments of transition. This is an art of observation and rhythm, in which the everyday becomes the central subject.
Website
Art fairs 2026
TEFAF Maastricht
March 14–19
One of the world's most prestigious fairs for fine art, antiques, and design. Founded in 1988, it has since been considered the benchmark for quality for museum collections, private collections, and major institutions. More than 250 galleries from approximately 20 countries are represented. Directors of the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and other important institutions come to Maastricht annually to expand their collections.
ART Rotterdam/UNSEEN
Rotterdam
March 27–29
Art Rotterdam is a key platform for young and contemporary Dutch art, offering a precise cross-section of contemporary social and artistic themes. This year, the fair is co-hosted by Unseen, one of the most influential international contemporary photography fairs, focused not on the market for "famous names," but on discovering new artistic languages and artists shaping the future of the medium.
Website
KunstRAI, Amsterdam
April 22–26
A comprehensive overview of contemporary art, design and jewelry from over 80 galleries.
Website
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And that's not all! Follow our news and publications on social media and at culturemulture.com to stay up-to-date on the most exciting exhibitions, festivals, and events of the year!
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