robert zandvliet

on the shores of time

From 23 May 2026 to 21 March 2027, the Fries Museum will present the exhibition Robert Zandvliet: On the Shores of Time. This year, the work of this artist, who was originally from Friesland, will be featured in two major international exhibitions, and the comprehensive monograph Monolith will be published. The Fries Museum began collecting his work early on and now sees an opportunity to bring Zandvliet’s oeuvre back into the spotlight with a comprehensive retrospective. The exhibition begins with works from the museum’s own collection and concludes with a painting fresh from the studio.

Robert Zandvliet’s body of work is characterised by his quest for the essence of the image. With his compelling and direct style, he navigates the tension between figuration and abstraction. Zandvliet made his debut in the late 1990s with a series of monumental paintings of everyday objects: a rear-view mirror, a cinema screen, a hairpin. The clean lines of these objects later merge with those of a road network and a landscape, a theme that has since run like a thread through his work. This exhibition traces his development over the past 30 years. The exhibition opens with the hairpin from the Fries Museum’s collection and concludes with Arundo, one of his most recent paintings of reeds reflected in water.

the artist

Robert Zandvliet (1970, Terband) lives and works in Haarlem. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at venues including the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, De Pont in Tilburg and the Kunstmuseum Bonn. He completed a residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam and has received, amongst others, the Prix de Rome (1994), the Charlotte Köhler Prize (1998) and the Wolvecamp Prize (2004). His work is included in major national and international collections.

In 2026, Zandvliet will also be exhibiting at the Kunsthalle Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany), the Museum Franz Gertsch (Burgdorf, Switzerland) and the Caspar David Friedrich Centre (Griefswald, Germany).

akzonobel art foundation

This exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The AkzoNobel Art Foundation is a leading platform for international contemporary art with a strong focus on talent development. The foundation has been following Robert Zandvliet’s work since the start of his career and holds a large number of his works in its collection. Around half of the works in the exhibition have been made available on loan.

The Fries Museum is co-funded by Windpark Fryslân, the Province of Fryslân, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the VriendenLoterij, the Ir. Abe Bonnema Foundation and the Friends of the Fries Museum.