Who doesn’t love a little sweet treat?
An exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands shows there’s more to dessert than just a satisfying end to a meal. “Grand Dessert” serves up a feast of sweets and their social significance through a mix of historical art and artifacts, as well as contemporary painting, video, and sculpture.
The museum brought in a dessert expert, Janny van der Heijden—the host of the and the author of dozens of cookbooks—to guest curate the exhibition alongside Suzanne Lambooy, its curator of applied arts.
“Food connects us,” Lambooy told me. “It’s also an inspiration to a lot of artists. There are so many stories related to food to be told”
She first pitched the show to the museum 10 years ago, convinced that it would be of art historical interest but also fun. Visitors don’t seem to mind the educational spin on the subject: the show has been such a hit that the museum extended it another six months, with over 250,000 visitors already.
Wayne Thiebaud’s !996) on display in “Grand Dessert” at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Courtesy of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
It’s definitely not your typical museum show, although there is a classic Wayne Thiebaud painting of cakes in a bakery display case. The exhibition is broken up by different types of dessert, including pudding, chocolate, cake, and ice cream.
Specifically Dutch art historical nods range from an 18th-century painting on loan from the Mauritshuis by Willem van Mieris of someone ordering cookies from a grocer, to a Piet Mondrian, shown next to a marzipan reproduction of a cake designed to look like his gridded canvases. It was made by Dutch pastry chef Robèrt van Beckhoven based on a recipe from Caitlin Freeman’s written while she ran the cafe at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—one of a number of cookbooks included in the show, if you’re hoping to recreate some of these delicacies for yourself.
Willem van Mieris, (1717). Collection of the Mauritshuis, The Hague.
Other works are just pure fun, like the delectable looking purses from Dutch accessory designer Rommy Kuperus, founder of one-woman design brand RommyDeBommy. The artist sculpts each bag with lightweight clay, using acrylic paint to create mouthwateringly realistic copies of everything from cherry pie to crème brûlée.
“They’re all handmade by her,” Lambooy said. “And you can actually see that there is a zipper. I mean, it’s not that practical for every day, but you can use them!”
The show also includes specific nods to the history of the Netherlands, and the role that sugar played in trade by the Dutch West India Company and colonization.
RommyDeBommy, Charlotte Russe bag. Courtesy of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
In a show-stopping work, Natasja Sadi has filled a pair of 17th-century Delftware tulipières from the museum’s collection with delicate, hyperrealistic flowers hand-molded from sugar paste. The towering, pyramid-shaped, blue-and-white vases have many openings for displaying individual blooms, and would have been inspired by Chinese porcelain, brought to the nation by the Dutch East India Company.
Sadi was born in Suriname, a former Dutch colony, and now lives in Amsterdam. The work is responding to her African heritage, and the dark history of slavery that entails.
The artist is also tapping into a long history of sugar as a sculpting material, as evidenced by two antique books with illustrated instructions for making your own sugar flowers.
Natasja Sadi’s sugar flowers in Delfware tulipieres on display in “Grand Dessert” at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Photo: courtesy of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
“In Europe, most castles would have pastry chefs who would make sugar sculptures for the tables,” Lambooy added. A later section of the show is dedicated to the extravagance of royal desserts, with banquet tables featuring over 100 dishes, not counting purely decorative sugar work.
Those confections, and Sadi’s delicate florals—some of which Lambooy hopes will join the Kunstmuseum collection—weren’t meant to be eaten. But the show highlights the artistic qualities of other desserts destined to be devoured.
There’s an incredible display of dessert molds made from ceramic, glazed earthenware, pressed glass, or metal that would have been used to make jellies and pudding.
“They are so sculptural, almost architectural,” Lambooy said.
“Grand Desserts.” Courtesy of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
There are some from van der Heijden’s own kitchen, a collection of copper ones from Twickel Castle in Delden, the Netherlands, and even a pair of 18th-century porcelain examples from China. But the centerpiece is a massive collection of 20th-century ceramic molds amassed by the late Agnes Jansen-van Daalen, a woman from The Hague so passionate about the form that she helped found a club called the Kring van Puddingvorm Verzamelaars, or Circle of Pudding Mould Collectors.
Arrayed on a tiered, hot pink display case in the center of the gallery, those molds are accompanied by magnetic sand models of a finished pudding, allowing viewers to get a sense of what kind of marvelous-looking desserts they can create, such a Easter bunny or a swaddled infant.
Other works in the room include a beautiful painting of a mint green pudding by Dutch still life painter Arnout van Albada, and colorful glass jelly sculptures by Ayaka Hayashi.
Ayaka Hayashi, (2024). On loan from the artist. Courtesy of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
But perhaps the most visually satisfying part of the jelly gallery is the delightfully surreal video Adventures in Jelly, featuring an array of wobbling, jiggling jellies bouncing around. They look altogether too fantastic to be real—but the piece features real desserts Caroline Tremlett made using her collection of antique jelly molds, after taking a class with food historian Ivan Day.
For Lambooy, it was important that the exhibition celebrate women’s historic role in making desserts, and the artistry that goes into so many of these confections.
“There’s also a female empowerment movement with desserts, and we are giving it a place in the museum,” she said. “It’s the applied arts of the home.”
Historic artifacts related to dessert on view—which date from 1600 to the present day—include a 19th-century silver service with every possible utensil, such as special pastry forks, petit fours servers, and dedicated bun tongs. A display of historic cake stands are used to display adorable crocheted treats by Kate Jenkins, a British textile artist who specializes in food art.
A crochet dessert by Kate Jenkins. Courtesy of the artist.
And there’s plenty of work that looks good enough to eat, such as Shayna Leib’s glass and porcelain sculptures “Pâtisserie: French Series and American Series” (2016–17) inspired by the different styles of desserts in both countries—and the artist’s craving for sweets she had to give up due to allergies.
The exhibition also explores the international histories of some individual desserts, like baklava, variations of which can be found in Turkey, Syria, and Egypt.
And then there’s the classic Chinese fortune cookie, likely invented in Japan and popularized in the U.S. The crisp cookie is represented here by larger-than-life ceramic sculptures by Rotterdam based artist Benjamin Li, who draws inspiration from his family’s experience moving to the Netherlands and working in Chinese-Indonesian restaurants.
Illustration from (1873), Jules Gouffé. Collection of the University of Amsterdam.
It’s an exhibition as widely varied as dessert itself, its range of different dishes telling all manner of stories, about race and class, power and responsibility. Dessert is more than just delicious—it’s a force throughout history.
“That’s the surprising effect of the exhibition,” Lambooy said. “There’s so much to learn, and so much to see.” And, arguably, so much to eat.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
