Amstelveen Triënnale 2024, Museum Cobra

On Saturday, May 18, 2024, the ninth edition of the Amstelveen Triennial will open at the Cobra Museum. The Amstelveen Triennial is a triennial event that provides a platform for professional visual artists who live or work in Amstelveen. Since 1998, this event has been organized by the Cobra Museum and, this year, once again in collaboration with our cultural partners Museum JAN and Platform C. From over 60 submissions, a jury consisting of staff from the aforementioned institutions selected the recent work of 21 artists.

The Triennial aims to offer artists working and/or residing in Amstelveen a professional platform while also providing the public with an overview of the state of local visual arts. The exhibition presents a cross-section of artistic practices in Amstelveen. Previous Triennials took place in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2017, and 2024.

This exhibition showcases the richness of local artistic practices in all their diversity. Alongside established names, the Amstelveen Triennial also introduces surprising newcomers, covering a wide range of artistic expressions—from painting to installation, and from video art to printmaking. The selection includes conceptual art, such as a carpet in the shape of an envelope, as well as material experiments and explorations of traditional themes like landscape and interior. Some works engage with topics such as migration and language, exemplified by a wooden armor and a fist made of hard foam. Additionally, several paintings explore the themes of trauma and the subconscious, rendered in both figurative and abstract forms.

Special thanks go to the Municipality of Amstelveen for its generous financial support, and, of course, to all the artists of Amstelveen, without whom the Amstelveen Triennial would not exist.