The Museum of the Mind is fascinated by the work of art inside your head. Because nothing is as diverse, unique, powerful and yet so fragile as the human mind. Through its art and cultural programs, the museum helps to bring mental health and neurodiversity into the open.
Museum of the Mind has two locations; one in Haarlem and one in Amsterdam. In Haarlem you can discover more about your own mind and those of others in an interactive way. In Amsterdam you can see exhibitions with outsider art, in which artists show their imaginative inner world.
All tickets can be purchased online in advance.
Museum of the Mind | Dolhuys in Haarlem
In this historical building, you will get to peek inside the minds of artists, writers and scientists. The museum invites you on an interactive voyage of discovery into your own mind, and those of others. A museum bursting with personal stories, surprising art and an expansive historical collection, straddling the boundaries between healthcare, art and science. A visit to the museum is an experience focused on the wonder and versatility of the mind. Come visit and allow yourself to wonder about what is normal. Are you normal?
A historical building
Museum of the Mind | Dolhuys is situated in a unique medieval building: the former lepers-, plague and madhouse. For years the building lay outside the city walls of Haarlem, sheltering the ‘insane’ and people with contagious diseases such as plague and leprosy.
Go back in time and visit one of the very few remaining isolation chambers in Europe, dating from the 16th century. What does it feel like to be locked away in such a dark and confided space?
Museum of the Mind | Dolhuys won the European Museum of the Year Award 2022.
Museum of the Mind | Outsider Art in Amsterdam
Museum of the Mind | Outsider Art in Amsterdam is the only museum in the Netherlands with a large (international) Outsider Art collection. This is art produced by those who are art world – and often social – outsiders. Through their work, they show their inner world without being concerned by the opinions of the outside world. Experience the extraordinary art made by individuals who, for the most part, are not formally trained as artists. Their work is authentic, unconventional and goes against the grain.
The museum presents surprising, unpolished art. Step into a completely new world and into the wild rollercoaster of Outsider Artists, who sometimes go about their work almost manically. The inner world of these artists is often so full that it overflows into a great oeuvre. In this museum you will look at art in a different way.
Museum of the Mind | Outsider Art is located in the Hermitage Amsterdam.
For the Love of Art: collection highlights
Until 5 November 2023
For the Love of Art is the permanent exhibition with outsider art in Museum of the Mind. This diverse art collection tells one universal story: the passionate way of the artists for the process of creating art and thereby exposing a part of their inner world. Compare it with your mind in a state of infatuation; a mind where you can act with full commitment, without external influences.
Feel the love of art trough more than 90 works; from monstrous sculptures with dreamy looks made by the Japanese artist Shinichi Sawada to friendly black and white figures drawn by the Iranian Davood Koochaki. The thoughts of the British artist Richard C. Smith come to life with film fragments from the documentary by Gabriel Jagger (son of Mick Jagger) and Finbar Brown. Discover the paintings and collages of Ria Mul and enjoy the digital works of Abraham Diopp. Get amazed by the explosion of color in M. Anesi’s creations, the details in the flower and plant textile works of South African Aradne, and so much more.
31553580 (obsessie/obsession): numbers and schedules
22 September 2022 – 5 November 2023
When the world becomes chaotic and intangible, like during a pandemic, many of us attempt to get a handle on reality by reducing it to a series of elementary lines and numbers. The exhibition 31553580 (obsessie/obsession): numbers and schedules explores a craving for structure and logic in our chaotic world. Artworks by Doerte Weber, Eiko Ishizawa, George Widener and Lionel Plak offer solace for the soul, something that connects us all.
The new exhibition at Museum van de Geest | Outsider Art is the result of the first ever collaboration between artist Jan Hoek and curator Hanne Hagenaars. Visitors are actively involved and in the run-up to the exhibition, they are invited to submit their most remarkable lists and schedules. The submissions will be presented at the museum during the exhibition. 31553580 is designed in collaboration with exhibition designer Tariq Heijboer.
One huge schedule
The exhibition is a structured entity allowing visitors to escape from the chaotic world outside. Step into an enormous schedule, where the works are exhibited in a large, orderly grid pattern. The gallery texts – handwritten by the curators – connect the artworks logically.
Guest curators Hanne Hagenaars and Jan Hoek
A joint fascination for numbers and schedules previously inspired Hanne Hagenaars and Jan Hoek, mother and son, to produce a themed edition for art magazine Mister Motley. Many artists (especially outsider artists) use the strategies of bringing order, devising systems and categorisation in their work. Even without the additional stress of a pandemic, for many people, the world is so overwhelming that it needs to be stripped back to order and abstraction. This has resulted in numerous oeuvres with a flood of unstoppable and ever-growing schedules. Regular artists also produce the most incredible schedules. To some extent, all of us are inclined to capture chaos in schedules. From artists to managers with a fear of failure, to family men undergoing a midlife crisis. With the exhibition 31553580 (obsessie/obsession): numbers and schedules, the guest curators merge the partitioned worlds of ‘insider’, ‘outsider’ and everyone else.
Participating artists
31553580 (obsessie/obsession): numbers and schedules features work by artists including: Alex Naber, Angel Lartigue, Annesas Appel, Ardian Ramadanovic, De Gasten, Daphne Agten, Doerte Weber, Eiko Ishizawa, Elisa Pinto, Emma Wiersma, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, George Korsmit & Saskia Janssen, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, George Widener, Georgina Starr, Gijs Assmann, Jan Hoek, Job Koelewijn, Kenny Callens, Kiki Smith, Lien Anckaert, Laura Body, Lionel Plak, Lizzie van Itallie, Lubos Plny, Marit Westerhuis, Melvin Way, Michiel de Jaeger, Pieke Werner, Renske de Greef, Rainbow Soulclub (Mimosa Govert Visser en AMP (Parry Person), Ruben Armando (La pureza del Arte), Ruth van Beek, Shane Drinkwater, Simon Evans, Tobias Tebbe, Toon Teeken & Océane Teeken and Zdenek Kosek.
Dolhuys Foundation
As a foundation, we believe in a society in which, when your mind works differently than normal, you are heard and seen and can participate on the basis of equality. The two museums that we operate give a voice to people in society who were previously not represented in the cultural landscape.