MUST-SEE BENELUX EXHIBITIONS BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR

Pablo Picasso once said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” And you most certainly don’t have to be an artist to allow yourself to experience art. If you don’t feel like writing a poem or painting another Mona Lisa, visiting an exhibition on a Saturday afternoon might just do the trick – and do we have a selection in the Benelux?! From Amsterdam to Antwerp, our editors have the best recommendations for where you can feed your soul and shake the dust of everyday life right off.

FOAM | BLOMMERS & SCHUMM - MID-AIR
AÏCHA PILMEYER, art editor

left:
Nadja for Buffalo Magazine, Styling by Harry Lambert, 2019 © Blommers & Schumm

right:
Ciara, styling by Suzanne Koller, 1998 © Blommers & Schumm

Blommers and Schumm have spent over 25 years creating playful and inventive images, and it shows. Their photographs blur the line between fashion and art, capturing seemingly impossible moments, such as a falling glass, an object collage forming a face, or a model defying gravity, all staged entirely in front of the camera. The work makes you pause and question what you see and how you see it. It’s a fun exploration of how our eyes and mind process the world as their photographs playfully trick you. 

Blommers and Schumm – Mid Air runs from until February 23, 2026 at Foam.

H’ART MUSEUM | BRANCUSI, THE BIRTH OF MODERN SCULPTURE
ELIANA CASA, social media editor

Constantin Brancusi © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Philippe Migeat/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn © Succession Brancusi – All rights reserved (Adagp) c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2025

In the intimate rooms of the H’ART Museum, Brâncuși brings us back to the essence of things, and we’re simply left wondering. What are the stories of the women distilled into marble ovals? Behind sheer curtains, wooden forms like The Infinite Column emerge and disappear with the light. Then, The Kiss stops time altogether. Entering the space feels like a quiet revelation of a radical mind - an artist who carved directly into the material, refusing to follow any model. He didn’t just challenge how we perceive reality; he built a world of his own.

The Birth of Modern Sculpture runs until January 18, 2026 at H’Art Museum

EYE FILMMUSEUM  | TILDA SWINTON: ONGOING
MAREK BARTEK, fashion editor

left:
Jim Jarmusch, Zelda Winston, 2018/2025, Video, sound, Courtesy Kill The Head Inc. & Focus Features

right:
Tim Walker, The Tree, 2023, 2025, Colour photography, Courtesy Tim Walker

Probably the most talked-about Amsterdam exhibition of 2025 is currently happening in the Eye Filmmuseum. Titled Ongoing, it puts the ever-so-etherial Tilda Swinton and her many collaborations in the centre. Walking through, you really are fully immersed in the Swintonverse, her evolution as a performer, and her ongoing artistic endeavours. She is a chameleon, who allows her collaborators to mould her into new forms, and through this exhausting process, we, the audience, are left with one of the most breathtaking, engaging experiences an artist can offer – and an urge to (re)watch Orlando. 

Tilda Swinton: Ongoing runs until February 28, 2026 at Eye Filmmusem

NXT MUSEUM | STILL PROCESSING
MARIE-PAULINE CESARI, head of digital content

left:
Balfua: The Slollaleia, Nxt Museum Still Processing, photography by MAARTREN NAUW

right:
Geoffrey Lillemon:Simulation in Blue, Nxt Museum Still Processing, photography by MAARTREN NAUW

Nxt Museum’s Still Processing made me feel unusually curious. Walking around without a set path felt calming, like I could follow whatever pulled me. Some works hit harder than I expected: Boris Acket’s Duration felt tense and haunting, like a storm, while Children of the Light brought an unexpected softness. When I went back, the show felt different — almost like it shifted with my mood. It’s worth visiting because it slows you down in a very honest way.

Still Processing runs until February 6, 2026 at MXT Museum

STEDELIJK MUSEUM | ERWIN OLAF - FREEDOM
AÏCHA PILMEYER, art editor

left:
Erwin Olaf, Chessmen, V, 1988 © Estate Erwin Olaf, courtesy Galerie Ron Mandos Amsterdam

middle:
Erwin Olaf, Ladies Hats, Hennie, 1985 © Estate Erwin Olaf, courtesy Galerie Ron Mandos Amsterdam

This isn’t your typical retrospective. You won’t just see the perfectly staged glamour shots you know; you meet the artist behind them. The one who pushed boundaries, explored identity, treated light as a language, and embraced vulnerability. As the first major show since his sudden passing, the Stedelijk and Studio Erwin Olaf present something honest, and moving. You step into his world: the early experiments, the iconic images, the activism, the curiosity, the doubts. It’s intimate, moving, and above all, human.

Erwin Olaf - Freedom runs until March 1, 2026 at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

MUSEUM VOORLINDEN | MARK MANDERS - MIND STUDY
AÏCHA PILMEYER, art editor

left:
Mark Manders, Mindstudy, Voorlinden, photography by ANTOINE VAN KAAM

right:
Mark Manders, Mindstudy, Voorlinden, photography by ANTOINE VAN KAAM

Mindstudy offers insight into the world through Manders’ observations. The exhibition invites reflection on your own mind, showing how memory, time, and experience shape perception. Hand-made sculptures, painted clay, and layered installations capture brief moments, balancing loss, gratitude, and life’s fragility. From standing eye to eye with the larger-than-life sculptures to walking through his recreated atelier, Mindstudy offers a playful journey through Manders’ world, where nothing is perfect and that imperfection makes it feel alive, approachable, and quietly beautiful.

Mark Manders – Mindstudy runs until January 18, 2026, at Voorlinden

FENIX | ALL DIRECTIONS
MAREK BARTEK, fashion editor

All Directions, Eastside with Bottari Truck, photography by IWAN BAAN

right:
Paci, Centro di Permanenzo Temporanea, 2007, Collection Fenix

As Mr Dickens wrote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” And we truly do live in strange times. Fenix’s All Directions has a subtitle Art That Moves You — and yes, this exhibition most definitely will. Works of over a hundred artists move you emotionally by physically transporting you into the worlds of people, who have been less fortunate. Remains of the Berlin Wall or the first passport of a stateless citizen, it is a harsh but extremely necessary reminder that even today there are stories about identity, happiness, migration or displacement that need to be told.

MOMU | GIRLS: ON BOREDOM, REBELLION, AND BEING IN-BETWEEN
PHOEBE GIBSON-DOUGALL, website editor intern

left:
Micaiah Carter, Adeline in Barrettes, courtesy of MoMu

right:
Juergen Teller, Marc Jacobs SS2007, courtesy of MoMu

​​Girlhood is a short period of enormous emotional and personal transformation, one that is often misunderstood and dismissed in popular culture. With Girls, curator Elisa De Wyngaert has brought together cultural touchstones across the spheres of art, fashion, cinema, and media to form a stirringly authentic portrait of girlhood and its many experiences and expressions. It’s bittersweet, celebratory, and heartbreaking; perfectly encapsulating the contradictions of girlhood, all the beauty and ugliness, without being condescending or reductive. After all, you don’t just leave girlhood, you drag it with you.

Girls: On Boredom, Rebellion, and Being In-Between until February 1, 2026 at MoMu Antwerp

KUNSTHAL ROTTERDAM |  SCULPTING THE SENSE
MAREK BARTEK, fashion editor

left:
Iris van Herpen. ‘Crystallization’ top, Crystallization collection, Haute Couture, 2010

right:
Iris van Herpen. Labyrinthine gown, Sensory Seas collection, Haute Couture spring/summer 2020

If you are at least remotely on the fashion side of social media, you have seen the otherworldly creations of Iris van Herpen. Her visionary approach to fashion puts her right on the top of contemporary avant-garde couturiers. Working with several other artists, van Herpen and Kunsthal Rotterdam prepared a multidisciplinary installation that expands on nine themes the designer already tackles in her work. Experiencing the exhibition, you can’t help but be confronted with very existential questions surrounding (your) human body, its relationship with fashion, and its future in our rapidly changing world.

Sculpting the Sense runs until March 1, 2026 at Kunsthal Rotterdam

MUSEUM VILLA | ENIWAYE OLUWASEYI
AÏCHA PILMEYER, art editor

Eniwaye Oluwaseyi, courtesy of Museum Villa

Eniwaye Oluwaseyi’s paintings stand out with bold colour, texture and expression, shaped through classical oil-paint techniques that make the work feel both new and timeless. Rooted in memory and personal narrative, his figurative works build layered psychological atmospheres that explore identity, social change and the spaces we share. His work reflects on how the Black body moves through social and cultural contexts and how identity continues to evolve, shift and be claimed. It’s an exhibition about presence, memory and the layers that shape belonging.

MUSEUM JAN | FONG-LENG & FANS - 60 JAAR FASHION & FAAM
VERONICA TLAPANCO SZABÓ, website editor intern

left:
Studio Ferry van der Nat, leopard coat with corset by Fong-Leng, 1982
Published in Dapper Dan magazine 28, fall/winter 2023

right:
Studio Ferry van der Nat, two-piece satin ensemble by Fong-Leng, 1977
Published in Dapper Dan magazine 28, fall/winter 2023

Fashion, fantasy, Fong Leng! The Dutch designer has been enchanting the sartorial scene for over six decades, a journey that traces back to a boutique in 1969 at the Drugstore in the Nieuwendijk! She later expanded into a full-fledged studio bearing her name, Studio Fong Leng. The exact age at which Fong Leng accomplished all this remains a mystery (she loves keeping both her age and her true self under wraps). Now Museum JAN’s latest exhibition attempts to unwrap all the layers of this fashion phenomenon, inviting you to wander through her colourful and whimsical living room? Yes, she is still creating, albeit with a different canvas… textile paintings! 

Fong-Leng & Fans - 60 Jaar Fashion & Faam runs until April 6, 2026 at Museum Jan

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM | OCEANISTA: FASHION & SEA
PHOEBE GIBSON-DOUGALL, website editor intern

left:
Jean Paul Gaultier, photography SIW ALDERSHVILE NIELSEN

right:
NIÑO DIVINO, photography MARIO GONSALVES

For most of us, fashion is one of the last things that comes to mind when we think of the sea—after all, life vests aren’t considered the chicest of garments—but after visiting the National Maritime Museum’s latest exhibition, you might just change your mind. Oceanista: Fashion & Sea explores maritime culture’s influence on the world of fashion. Breton stripes and fisherman sweaters are at home alongside otherworldly Iris van Herpen creations and antique whalebone corsetry. For the occasion, we interviewed the designers behind BOTTER, whose work features in the exhibition, about their process and the sustainable future of clothing. 

Oceanista: Fashion & Sea runs until April 12, 2026 at National Maritime Museum

HUIS MARSEILLE | MICHELLA BREDAHL - ROOMS WE MADE SAFE
AÏCHA PILMEYER, art editor

left:
© Michella Bredahl, Siblings Martha, Alma, Olga, Ida and Asta in Their Home, 2023

right:
© Michella Bredahl, Clive and Tonia in Their Home, 2019

Known for her portraits of friends and family, Bredahl captures unguarded moments in everyday spaces. Her work explores womanhood and the quiet bonds between women in familial settings, following a personal thread from her mother’s photographs to scenes from her own childhood. From early domestic scenes to Parisian portraits and pole-dancing studies, she turns private worlds into powerful, revealing works. Her first major solo museum exhibition celebrates the strength, complexity, and quiet beauty of life at home.

Michella Bredahl - Rooms We Made Safe runs until February 8, 2026 at Huis Marseille