AkzoNobel Art Foundation

14/07/2026

‘My work is autobiographical and that seems to emerge as nostalgia. The colour palette is evocative of flesh and femininity and a feeling of warmth and safety’ (Mia Chaplin, 2016).

The dynamics and rich impasto of the painting are typical of the work of Mia Chaplin. The artist is interested in how existing gender-based power structures work and how female identity is shaped by these structures. The painting explores the boundaries of figuration and abstraction, so that the depicted scene seems to disintegrate before our eyes.

Mia Chaplin lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. Her work is placed in numerous international private collections; public collections include Spier Arts Trust (Cape Town) and the Lam Museum (Lisse, Netherlands). Chaplin has participated in several residencies, including at Cité Internationale Des Artes in Paris.

🎨 Mia Chaplin | I’ve Got the Spirit But I’ve Lost the Feeling | 2019 | Oil paint on linen

09/07/2026

The paintings of Bernard Frize do not contain any recognizable representations: they convey the art of painting pure, simple and free of subjective elements. Frize is chiefly concerned with the tools that he uses, such as the chemical composition of his paint, the types of brush and the quality of his material.

Working in series, he has developed diverse protocols in order to undermine his own creative role and thus free his compositions of self-expression. For Frize, paint, resin, brush and canvas are not materials to be mastered, but collaborators with whom he enters into a working relationship.

The artist has extensively exhibited internationally, amongst others in Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, London and Paris. Our art foundation has been proud to add works by Frize to the collection since the nineties and he is right now the protagonist of an unprecedented exhibition in Eastern Europe, hosted by MARe/ Museum of Recent Art in Bucharest, Romania. The exhibition brings together more than 40 large-scale works, produced since 1978. Bernard Frize makes a kind of puzzle, ‘a board game with strict rules’, as curator and museum director of MARe, Gregory Lang, says. In this sense, his creation is ‘a minimalist work of art, meant to show that it is not an expressive figurative painting’.

🎨 Images:

1 and 2. Bernard Frize | Vingthuit | 1996 | Acrylic paint, resin on canvas | collection AkzoNobel Art Foundation (slide 1 is a detail)
3. Bernard Frize | Apparition | 1998 | Acrylic paint, resin on canvas | collection AkzoNobel Art Foundation
4. Bernard Frize | Conducteur K | 2003 | Acrylic paint, resin on canvas | collection AkzoNobel Art Foundation
5 - 10. Installation images, solo exhibition Bernard Frize MARe/Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest (May 22 - Aug 16, 2026)

02/07/2026

01/07/2026

Today, on July 1st, we highlight the National Commemoration of the History of Slavery, reflecting on the abolition of the Dutch transatlantic slavery and the Keti Koti festival!

Artist Dion Rosina, amongst others the winner of the Royal Award for Painting 2026, has made the campaign image of the Keti Koti festival this year and we are proud to have artworks of him in our collection! These three works will be on show from July 4 on, loaned from our collection by Museum van Bommel van Dam.

We are also happy to highlight artworks by Kenneth Aidoo today. The representation and neglected history of black people is a central theme in Aidoo’s work. But in his most recent work he opposes the stereotypical placing of black people in a context of poverty, violence and oppression and focuses on their pride, wealth and daily life.

We have many more engaged artists in the collection and are committed to share their artworks. We believe that art keeps us aware and that it keeps the discussion alive!





🎨 Images:

1. Dion Rosina | Regeneration | 2024 | Oil and acrylic on cotton
2. Campaign poster Keti Koti festival 2026, artwork by Dion Rosina, graphic design ._.__._
3. Dion Rosina | Untitled | 2023 | Oil paint on linen
4. Dion Rosina | Untitled | 2022 | Oil paint on linnen, mounted on panel
5. Kenneth Aidoo | Black Stars Never Stopped Dreaming | 2024 | Oil on cotton
6. Kenneth Aidoo | Black Star | 2024 | Oil on cotton
7. Kenneth Aidoo | As Black Man, I also need Shade | 2024 | Oil on cotton

29/06/2026

Anna Bjerger’s works are based on extracts form books and manuals she bought at thrift shops and yard sales and her works evoke a feeling of familiarity. Bjerger takes the images from their external context, creating space for other stories and other associations in our imagination.

The artist applies her paint to an aluminum background using strong brush strokes, giving the painting a spontaneous almost sketchy character and the speed with which Bjerger paints is reminiscent of the directness of photography.

Born in Sweden, Anna Bjerger graduated from the Central St. Martins School of Art and Design and the Royal College of Art both in London. Her work has been collected by several private and public collections such as Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Zabludowicz Collection in United Kingdom.

🎨 Anna Bjerger | Path | 2022 | Oil on aluminium (slide 1 is a detail of the artwork)

22/06/2026

The work of Michel Hoogervorst consists of paintings in acrylic and alkyd paint, drawings and etchings. Using fields and lines, Hoogervorst divides the canvas into compartments, and it’s within these grids that the artist tells his story.

Hoogervorst has frequently exhibited, at among others Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, and his work is held in various public and private collections in The Netherlands and internationally. At this very moment the artist is exhibiting at Galerie Ramakers in The Hague, as one of the three artists in ‘Rencontres’ (on view until June 28).

Galerie Ramakers stated retorically: ‘What do the flowers, which appear frequently in his work, signify? Was the flower on this canvas cut out with the knife from the other canvas?’... Go visit the current exhibition in The Hague and reflect on this one!

🎨 Images:

1 and 2. Zonder titel (1) | 2015 | Mixed media on paper, aluminum (slide 1: detail of the artwork)
3. Michel Hoogervorst | Zonder titel (6) | 2015 | Mixed media on paper, aluminum
4. Michel Hoogervorst | Zonder titel (4) | 2015 | Mixed media on paper, aluminum
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20/06/2026

FINISSAGE EVENT ‘GREIGE FANTASTIC’

Yesterday we had the pleasure to festively close together the exhibition at De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), born from a fruitful collaboration between De Vereiniging Bedrijfscollecties Nederland (VBCN), DNB and Het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam!

Maia Kenney, the winner of the VBCN Open curatorial prize, has put together an amazing exhibition! Yesterday we celebrated it for the very last time with a breathtaking performance by Eugenie Boon and fellow performers, followed by closing words from Roos van Mierlo, curator at DNB, and a reflection on performance art by our director of the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Hester Alberdingk Thijm.

Last but not least we listened to a panel discussion, led by Maia Kenney, between Eugenie Boon and Ginevra Petrozzi, multimedia artist who created a large-scale installation in which artworks were brought to life by magical means.

The AkzoNobel Art Foundation is happy to have offered the performance today and to have loaned artworks of three of the artists in our collection: Juliette Minchin, Fiona Lutjenhuis and Odonchimeg Davaadorj.

Thank you for having us!




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Images:
1-14: festive finissage ‘Greige Fantastic’
15. Juliette Minchin | Oculus 11 | 2023 | Wax, brass
16. Fiona Lutjenhuis | Hinge | 2024 | Wooden room divider painted with casein and pigments
17. Odonchimeg Davaadorj | thanks to spring 2 | 2024 | Glazed clay

19/06/2026

Martijn Schuppers surprised us this week with a special donation! We already had two artworks from his beautiful project SNS (2002) in our collection and now, thanks to this generous gesture, our series is almost complete. A huge thank you to the artist!

Schuppers makes artworks by dissolving, painting the paint away. On a colored base he applies a second layer and then partly removes it using various techniques, such as solvents or an airbrush. The resulting canvas is filled with extraordinairy shapes exhibiting a strange sense of depth—a dynamic illusionary design.

Are these photographs on canvas or paintings? Images of the moon, close-ups of sponges, or a windswept beach?

🎨 Images: 
1. Martijn Schuppers | SNS | 2002 | Acrylic paint, alkyd, oil paint on polyester canvas (on display at Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam)
2. Martijn Schuppers and Hester Alberdingk Thijm signing the donation contract of 10 artworks from the SNS project
3. Visiting the artwork Martijn Schuppers | # 0262/ABSP | 2002 | Oil paint, acrylic paint, alkyd, on polyester canvas (on display at the AkzoNobel office, Amsterdam)
4. Martijn Schuppers in front of his artwork # 1920 | 2019 | Acrylic, alkyd, oil paint on polyester canvas (on display at the AkzoNobel office, Amsterdam)
5. Martijn Schuppers | # 0117 | 2001 | Acrylic paint, alkyd, oil paint on polyester canvas | collection AkzoNobel Art Foundation
6. Martijn Schuppers | # 0027 | 2000 | Oil paint, alkyd on polyester canvas | collection AkzoNobel Art Foundation
7. Martijn Schuppers | # 0106 | 2001 | Acrylic paint, alkyd, oil paint on polyester canvas | collection AkzoNobel Art Foundation

17/06/2026

Jan Robert Leegte is one of the first Dutch artists to work on and for the internet since the nineties. Around 2000, he shifted his main focus to implementing digital materials in the context of the physical gallery space, aiming to bridge the online art world with the gallery art world, making prints, sculpture, installations, drawings, and projections, connecting to historical movements like land art, minimalism, performance art, and conceptualism.

The artist stated: ‘The networked computer is the central muse in my work, exploring all its wonders and peculiarities. I don’t use software to make art, I make art about software’.

As we speak Leegte’s work is being presented at Art Basel by the galleries and . He brings together JPEG, Sightings and Orbits, three series that unfold around images without a source. The photographic appearance emerges without a lens and a world is generated live, frame by frame.

🎨 Images:

1 and 2. Stills from Performing a Landscape (Storm) | 2020 | 4K video, 30 min
3. Excerpt from video Performing a Landscape (Storm) | 2020 | 4K video, 30 min
4 and 5. Impression presentation Jan Robert Leegte at Art Basel 2026 - Zero 10

17/06/2026