the Making Fun exhibition makes you laugh out loud★★★★☆

No, even at an exhibition that revolves around ‘fun’, I didn’t expect it. We were only in a few minutes Making Fun in De Warande in Turnhout, just over the Belgian border. And suddenly, when a piece of art took us by surprise in an overwhelming, insane way, we were laughing. Really laughing out loud like: ‘Hahahahaa!’ Then we looked at each other in surprise: ‘Where did that red hoop go all of a sudden?’

Art is usually not for laughs. Not exactly, I would almost write. Museums are still serious places. It can be quite exuberant within the artworks, but the message is often profound and well thought out. To be endured with a frown and hand on chin, and above all: in silence.

You can leave that frown at home when you go to this cheerful group exhibition. Here 39 (mainly) Belgian and Dutch artists show their funniest side. The youngest is 23, the oldest just turned 80, which is of course Wim T. Schippers. They make crazy collages, build a cactus from household sponges, clay ridiculous ashtrays, or have a machine launch a hoop. Although that turned out not to be the intention (see box).

hoop machine immediately proves what humor is: something unexpected. A punch line, a joke, a plot twist, something you don’t see coming or understand right away. Such jokes also turn out to be fine without words. Take the big picture Beach Day by the Dutchman Willem de Haan (26). A beach scene. A man in shorts is enjoying the sun. Behind it, a woman is lying on a towel in the shade. Blink three times and then you see that the man is holding a large photo of a cloud. That’s why that woman is in the shadows. Do you understand? Oh, forget it. Explaining a (visual) joke is no longer funny at all.

A major plot twist, which I had not yet recognized as ‘funny’ but would rather call it existential or philosophical, comes from Stijn ter Braak (27). He recreated his bathroom from scrap materials last year and devised a wonderfully effective way to replicate the mirror. It is in fact (spoiler alert) a hole. And behind it is the same bathroom again, completely imitated in mirror image. This bathroom is a highlight, not only within this exhibition, but within recent Dutch art. So especially experience it yourself (from both sides).

What the artists in De Warande have in common is that they not only offer fun to the viewer, but also to themselves. The joy of making is permeated by this art. They seem to have created their art primarily for themselves. Simply out of curosity. Because sometimes when you get something in your head, you can’t get it out until it’s there.

This emphasis on making fun distinguishes this exhibition from other overviews of humorous art, such as the extensive (and partly historical) exhibition at the Frans Hals Museum in 2017. It gives the exhibition something timeless and universal. Here you will find something for everyone, regardless of age or background, to smile, to be shocked or to laugh about. And maybe you also feel like making or doing something tender yourself.