This year will be another great year for exhibitions in the Hague.
For a medium-sized city (it’s the third largest in the Netherlands) it really punches above its weight in terms of culture. The Hague’s best museums are some of Europe's best museums.
Which means that there are always excellent exhibitions to visit on any trip to this under-the-radar Dutch city.
So if you’re wondering what to see in the Hague in 2025, then here are four stand-out shows that should be top of your to-visit list.
— Get the latest museum news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to my free newsletter
Grand Dessert: The history of the dessert | Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Visitors with a sweet tooth can this year dive into the delicious world of desserts in this unusual exhibition on the much-loved final food course.
The exhibition brings together hundreds of objects from Kunstmuseum Den Haag’s own collection, but also items on loan from museums, castles and country estates. They range from baking tins to recipe books, from dinner services to cutlery, and from ice cream moulds to menus. It offers a fun combination of art-historical objects alongside creative contributions from contemporary makers. Tom Friedman's sugar cube sculpture is a highlight.
The exhibition’s guest curator Janny van der Heijden — host of the Dutch version of the Great British Bake Off — says that desserts warrant a huge museum show because they are “more than just the ultimate ending to a meal.” Van der Heijden thinks desserts "[reflect] changes in culture, society and tastes down the centuries.”
Grand Desserts also offers visitors evocative fragrances which they can inhale on their exhibition journey — because, of course, tasting is mainly done with your nose. You’ll be able to get a nose-full of the spicy fragrance of Indonesian sponge cake and the delicious smell of apple pie, amongst 10 others.
Open now until 06 April 2025 — kunstmuseum.nl
Marleen Sleeuwits: Enter the Cube | Fotomuseum Den Haag
The Hague-based artist Marleen Sleeuwits plays tricks with our vision in this unique exhibition about optical illusions and how we experience space.
Enter the Cube sees Sleeuwits establish a dialogue with the work of the famous American Minimalist artist Sol LeWitt. The undoubted highlight will be a colourful site-specific three-dimensional installation — the titular ‘cube’ — that visitors are invited to enter and wander, seemingly through infinite space. It’s directly inspired by LeWitt’s works in which he endlessly explored the shape of a cube.
Alongside the installation will be new and older works in which Sleeuwits explores the relationship between originals, replicas and photography. Sleeuwits works with materials that surround us in our everyday lives, such as suspended ceiling systems, plasterboards and laminate floors. She does this so we can question the often overlooked surfaces of our environments.
Specially for this exhibition, she’s also created new works in her Ongoing Series of False Ceilings, in which she combines real ceiling panels with edited photographs and casts.
Opens 18 January until 05 May 2025 — fotomuseumdenhaag.nl
New Paris: From Monet to Morisot | Kunstmuseum Den Haag
The Impressionists are coming to the Hague. But it’s a different European city that this art exhibition focuses on: Paris.
65 paintings from some of the most famous artists of the Impressionist movement will go on display — including Manet, Renoir, Degas, Bazille, Caillebotte, Cassatt, and Morisot. Collectively they will show the evolution of the French capital in the 19th century. It was a time that saw Paris transform into the vibrant city we know today.
The stunning centrepiece will be the landmark showing of three early paintings by Claude Monet. Each painted in 1867 and from a balcony at the Louvre museum, they show views of Paris that symbolise the radical change in the city. This exhibition marks only the second time these three outstanding city-scapes have been together in Europe since their creation.
Visitors should expect a journey into Paris’s history, where bustling cosmopolitanism rubbed against poverty and political unrest. As the title suggests, it’ll be a new view of the city of love.
Opens 15 February and runs until 08 June 2025 — kunstmuseum.nl
Ryan Gander x Edgar Degas: Pas de Deux | Museum Beelden aan Zee
One of the world’s most-loved sculptures is coming to the Hague, and will appear in a fun and thoughtful exhibition at the seaside gallery of Museum Beelden aan Zee.
Degas’ iconic sculpture La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans — or The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer — is one of the most recognizable sculptures of modern art, and even made a cameo in 2009 blockbuster comedy movie Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. The work depicts a young ballerina in a restrained and realistic pose.
For this exhibition, it will be seen with 24 other ballerina sculptures, all created by the British artist Ryan Gander. Since 2008, Gander has been working on a series in which he riffs off Degas’ ballerina. But instead of the 19th century’s air of poise, Gander places his dancer in unexpected or everyday situations. And often, she is paired with an ultramarine blue cube to add a splash of colour.
With Gander’s works in constant dialogue with Degas, it’ll produce a show that interrogates the role of art in presenting reality versus fiction.
Opens 20 June 2025 until 04 January 2026 — beeldenaanzee.nl