The Groninger Museum has plenty to celebrate in 2024. It will see its 150th birthday and its Mendini-designed building will turn 30. We're honouring the occasion with a packed schedule of festive events and fantastic exhibitions. Visitors can glimpse the inner workings of the museum in the new collection show 150 Years of the Groninger Museum – Behind the Scenes. The Children's Bienniale returns in March. And in November, the museum will unveil How Van Gogh Came to Groningen.
New in 2024
Children's Bienniale – A Better Place
9 March until 3 November 2024
The second edition of the popular Children's Biennale invites kids and adults to interact with art. Expect room-filling installations you can get onto or into, play with, or help to build. Artists from the Netherlands and abroad, including Florentijn Hofman, Hedy Tjin and Wang Ruobing, will present work that will get visitors thinking about a better world. The installations are once again being developed with input from young ambassadors.
150 Years of the Groninger Museum – Behind the Scenes
29 March 2024 until 1 June 2025
150 Years of the Groninger Museum – Behind the Scenes gives visitors a look at the inner workings of the museum. How does a collection take shape? How are artworks conserved, and how are they presented to the public? How were things done in the past, and what’s changed? As a special bonus, Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, stolen in 2020 and recently recovered, returns to public view for the first time in this anniversary collection exhibition!
How Van Gogh Came to Groningen
30 November 2024 until 5 May 2025
Few people know it, but the Groninger Museum hosted one of the biggest ever Vincent Van Gogh exhibitions. How Van Gogh Came to Groningen tells the story of the determined Groningers and enterprising students who brought modern art to the northern Netherlands in the 1890s, shaking up the art world. Alongside work by Van Gogh, the show features art by Jan Toorop, Johan Thorn Prikker, Theo van Hoytema and the De Ploeg artists Jan Altink, Johan Dijkstra and Henk Melgers.
Also on view in 2024
The Rolling Stones – Unzipped
Through 21 January 2024
Groningen is the final stop for The Rolling Stones – Unzipped. This impressive exhibition about and by the world-famous rock band tells the tale of their lengthy career through instruments, diary extracts, stage designs, album covers and iconic costumes. Highlights include reconstructions of the band’s studio and their modest flat in Edith Grove, London, plus a spectacular Dolby Surround experience of a 2016 concert in Cuba.
Joram Krol – Can I Be Me
Until 3 March 2024
Discover 116 raw portraits in Joram Krol’s characteristic black-and-white style. His honest photographs allow the subjects to be themselves while revealing something of the artist as well.
Nymphenburg x Groninger Museum – Porcelain. Art. Design.
Until 5 May 2024
Art, design and craft: since the mid-18th century, Munich’s Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg has been producing the finest porcelain, pure of form and entirely handmade. The Groninger Museum presents Nymphenburg’s magnificent creations in dialogue with objects from its own collection.
Erwin Olaf
Through March 2024
Erwin Olaf is inextricably linked with the Groninger Museum. To honour and remember the photographer, who died on 20 September at age 64, the Groninger Museum has placed 11 of his works from its extensive collection on display in the collection galleries. See photographs from the series After Rodin (2016), Blacks (1990) and Chessmen (1987–1988).
Along with these exhibitions, the permanent collection, containing work by the artists of De Ploeg, and Dale Chihuly’s Grand Stairwell Installation are also on view in the museum.