Image: Beelden aan Zee, The Hague
Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague will present ‘Jakob Grosse-Ophoff – Myself and Other Planets’ from 31 October 2026 to 4 April 2027, marking the German artist’s first museum solo exhibition. Installed in the museum’s Zuidzaal, the show centres on kinetic sculptures that visitors can set in motion themselves.
Grosse-Ophoff, born in Oldenburg in 1991, constructs works from wood and metal, at times incorporating everyday objects. Household motors and hand cranks drive sculptures that mimic human gestures. Rather than aiming for anatomical realism, the artist reduces figures to expressive details: a mouth, a hand gesture, or an action in which the human figure may be absent but remains recognisable.
Participation is built into the operation of the works. Visitors may press a button, turn a crank or pass a sensor to activate them. In ‘Hugger’ (2025), the encounter is more physical: pushing one’s chest against a wooden spring triggers two wooden arms to embrace the visitor.
The exhibition also includes sculptures in which figures talk, kiss and fight. Other works address self-perception through a mirror or a cinematic slap in the face. Some turn directly toward their audience, offering a blown kiss, a pointed hand gesture or an embrace. The works use mechanical movement and reduced gestures to evoke recognisable human situations, described by the museum as comic, poetic and everyday.
The title comes from Grosse-Ophoff’s 2023 work ‘Myself and Other Planets’, a kinetic solar system whose personified sun forms the human centre of its universe. The museum connects the work’s playful allusion to narcissistic selfie culture with the artist’s recurring concern for how people relate to themselves and others.
After studying mechanical engineering, Grosse-Ophoff developed independently as a sculptor and, following his graduation in 2019, focused fully on his artistic practice. The museum links his work to German wood-sculpture traditions, including Stephan Balkenhol and Georg Baselitz, as well as to kinetic artists Jean Tinguely and Theo Jansen.
