Image: Beelden aan Zee, The Hague
Museum Beelden aan Zee will present ‘Hans (Jean) Arp: A Library of Forms’ from 9 July 2027 to 23 January 2028, an international exhibition shaped by a multi-year art-historical and conservation study of 21 plaster models in its collection. Before the exhibition opens, visitors will be able to view the research in progress during Open Arp Lab sessions on Friday 25 September and Friday afternoon 2 October 2026.
Bringing together 75 sculptures, reliefs and plaster models, ‘A Library of Forms’ will trace the development of Arp’s organic formal language. Its focus is plaster, the material through which the artist modelled forms and kept revising them. The exhibition will present the results of the research into the museum’s 21 plasters while examining the repeated revision and translation of forms that marked Arp’s sculptural practice.
The group entered the museum in 2023, when the Stiftung Hans Arp und Sophie Taeuber-Arp e.V. donated 21 plaster models and a bronze sculpture by Arp. The acquisition made Beelden aan Zee the holder of the Netherlands’ largest public collection of Arp plasters, and prompted research on the plaster sculptures running from 2023 to 2027.
From around 1930, Arp concentrated on freestanding sculpture, with plaster becoming his principal working material. It allowed him to work intuitively, rework forms extensively and translate them into wood, marble or bronze. He did not seek a single definitive version of a sculpture: changes in scale, surface or orientation could give recurring forms new meanings. The exhibition’s title describes this accumulated repertory as a living library of forms underpinning his sculpture.
The presentation will include a selection of approximately 75 sculptures and reliefs made between 1915 and 1966. Curated by Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen, it follows the museum’s 2024 exhibition ‘A Petrified Forest’, in which the donated works were first shown. The two Open Arp Lab dates offer a public view of the investigation before its findings enter the 2027 exhibition.
