Collection as Cosmos

90 year anniversary
Celebrating its 90th birthday in 2026, the Van Abbemuseum presents a new collection display that offers a fresh perspective on time and rethinks the way we look at our collection. Collection as Cosmos challenges the idea of art history as one, continuous timeline. Instead, it focuses on the constellations and connections we can create with artworks across time. The exhibition stimulates wonder, invites new perspectives, and opens up a lively dialogue with time.

Four approaches to time
Collection as Cosmos presents the museum collection in an open, dynamic way. You are invited to experience time in four different ways:

Unchronological time
By moving away from a chronological order, the museum has created space for new stories. Ninety neighbours are invited to contribute to the exhibition by lending an object from their everyday life. These objects act as portals: they connect personal stories and memories to artworks in the collection.

Regenerative time
Life and death, celebration and loss. In her work, artist and death researcher G explores what grief and mourning can look like. How do we deal with these moments in the cycle of life? And what do they mean in a museum that collects, preserves and, sometimes, removes artworks from the collection?

Public time
How can we experience the outside in a museum? This approach questions museum frameworks such as walls and opening hours. In one room, arranged like a forest of sculptures and installations, you pass under an inflatable arch inspired by a marathon finish line.

Cosmic times
How does the night sky connect to the land and to agriculture? This fourth approach to time focuses on cycles of sowing and harvesting, linking cosmic and earthly rhythms. In this room you find yourself surrounded by walls filled with landscapes spanning the ages.