As part of its «Year of the Netherlands», the Kunsthalle Darmstadt is dedicating a solo exhibition to the internationally renowned painter and graphic artist Robert Zandvliet. At the heart of the exhibition are nine large-format colour-field paintings from his latest series, «Paradaidha», which invite visitors to linger in these immersive spaces. Each painting in this series opens a window onto a nature imagined as ideal – one might even say philanthropic. Through the exhibition’s title and individual motifs such as a gateway («Porta»), the concept and cultural achievement of the garden as a place of encounter between art and nature come into play. Thus, the new paintings evoke memories of German Romanticism (Caspar David Friedrich) and French Impressionism (Claude Monet). And through the expansion of the exhibition to include a selection of older paintings and monotypes, old and new, familiar and foreign alternate as one walks through the exhibition – just as in a garden.

Zandvliet shot to fame in the mid-1990s with his monumental still lifes. He soon left realism behind, however, and turned to the reinterpretation of classical genres, such as the portrait and the landscape, and occasionally to the works of other painters. He does not begin with photography or the study of nature, but with the idea of an object, the embodiment of which in painting he strives to realise in a single stroke, if possible, following a phase of experimentation.

Further exhibitions by Robert Zandvliet in 2026:
«Robert Zandvliet. The Painting is a Door»
Museum Franz Gretsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland, curated by Andreas Fiedler
21 March – 30 August 2026

«Robert Zandvliet»
Caspar-David-Friedrich-Zentrum, Greifswald
18 July – 3 October 2026

A series of talks, workshops and guided tours.
The exhibition’s supporting programme is available to view and download here:

Programme

Robert Zandvliet’s exhibitions in Burgdorf, Switzerland, and Darmstadt are accompanied by a comprehensive publication, «Monolith», featuring contributions by Jan Bor, Esther Darley, Elaine Equi, Andreas Fiedler, Gudrun Knaus and Robert Zandvliet.
Publisher: Jap Sam Books, 424 pages, price 55 EUR
ISBN 978-94-93329-73-7

with special support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands

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