“Aat Veldhoen is known for his colorful, lively works. But he also had a huge fascination for death and also processed it a lot in his work.” And that is why an exhibition about the Amsterdam artist fits so well in the museum so far, says Charlotte Waskowskij, who will probably show us around. “This is a museum about life and death, a place where we pay attention to how we deal with death. We want people to think about it during life.”
Skeletons and death portraits
And Veldhoen did enough. “He was afraid of death. He was afraid of the road to it. He was very busy with that. He used a lot of skeletons in his work, but also signed death portraits, for example, from his mother when she just died, but also deceased friends.” A few of those death portraits are now hanging in the museum, just like a death port of Veldhoen himself – lying in his coffin and surrounded with flowers and artworks – photographed by his daughter Venus.