Frank Ammerlaan in Zeep at Museum Jan Cunen, Oss
Frank Ammerlaan in Zeep at Museum Jan Cunen, Oss
Frank Ammerlaan is part of Zeep (Soap), an exhibition at Museum Jan Cunen in Oss.
In Oss, soap is history. At the end of the nineteenth century, animal fats from the booming meat industry were turned into soap, and local entrepreneurs such as Hartog, Van den Bergh and Jurgens built soap factories that, through the Margarine Unie and the later merger that created Unilever, grew into a global industry. In art, soap has carried meaning for centuries: in the seventeenth century the soap bubble stood for the transience of life, while rituals of washing speak of purification, forgiveness and, during the pandemic, solidarity.
In the exhibition, artists use soap as material, metaphor and memory: it dissolves, deforms and disappears, but also leaves traces. Ammerlaan shows work from his Chemicals on Canvas series, developed over years of research with chemists and scientists. He coats his canvases in black acrylic and submerges them in a bath of water and an undisclosed mixture of chemicals, from which they emerge with shimmering, iridescent colours, like the oil stains that catch the light on a city street after rain.
Zeep
On view until 1 November 2026
Museum Jan Cunen, Oss