Rijksmuseum honors Carel Visser with first Dutch-centered garden exhibition

Starting June 5, the gardens of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will feature 13 sculptures by artist Carel Visser. It is the first time that the annual exhibition in the Rijksmuseum gardens is dedicated to a Dutch artist since it began in 2013, the museum said.

The Rijksmuseum describes Visser as “the most prominent Dutch sculptor of the 20th century.” He frequently worked with industrial materials like iron, steel, and concrete to create large, often meter-high sculptures.

Three of Visser’s public-space works can be seen in the Rijksmuseum gardens. “These have rarely or never been moved from their original location and are being shown together for the first time.”

Among them is Jacob’s Ladder, the tallest sculpture he ever created, made up of eight identical black-coated steel elements arranged in a stepped formation. The piece was originally placed in 1975 on Robert Kochplein in Utrecht.

The sculptures will be on free display in the Rijksmuseum gardens from June 5 through October 25. While the garden exhibition centers on 13 sculptures, the museum is presenting over 15 works in total, including loans from other Dutch museums and private collections.

Two of the featured works, Signaal 1 and Signaal 2 (1963–1964), were installed in the Rijksmuseum gardens in 2024 following restoration. Standing roughly four to six meters tall, the sculptures were originally placed at the headquarters of the PTT’s Postcheque and Giro Service in The Hague. After the building was demolished in 2000, the works disappeared, only to be rediscovered years later on the site of a transport company that had taken them away at the time.

Visser represented the Netherlands at the 1968 Venice Biennale and was awarded the Heineken Prize for Art in 1992, one of the country’s most prestigious art prizes.