De Cycloop

Installations by 7 artists

In the fall of 2025, Museum Cobra will open the exhibition The Cyclops, a playful and energetic installation that invites visitors to literally and figuratively get moving. The exhibition is rooted in the spirit of the Cobra movement. For artists like Appel, Constant, and Van der Gaag, playfulness was not ornamentation but a necessity. They consciously used intuition and the physical to counterbalance the rigidity of systems and the growing belief in reason and control. That energy lives on in The Cyclops: an open way of seeing, in which play and collaboration create space for the unexpected.

The starting point is a simple, recognizable object: the marble. For the museum's Water Hall, seven artists each developed an installation that, in their own way, explores the movement, mechanics, or chain reactions of a marble. Together, the works form a spatial system.

One-eyed giant

The title refers to a figure from Greek mythology: a giant with a single eye in the center of his forehead. This Cyclops is often depicted as a powerful, instinctive figure who can be both creator and destroyer. His single eye symbolizes a focused gaze, but also a limited view of the world—he sees everything, but only from a single perspective. In the context of this exhibition, that eye takes on a new meaning: in the form of a marble, it becomes a moving sense, a tactile eye that moves through the whole, making connections along the way. The Cyclops is not a monster here, but a living system that learns through movement. The installations behave like one large body, one being, in which the individual parts work together like muscles, bones, and nerves. The eye—the marble—moves through this mechanism like a gaze that winds through space. Thus, the marble run becomes a living entity of action and reaction.

Learning through play

The exhibition is all about fun: about playing, about touching, rolling, and colliding. But also about experiencing the effects of materials: how form and gravity interact, how chance and control alternate. Visitors are also invited to set "the Cyclops" in motion and thus become part of the game. It's an exhibition that uses play as a way to learn, feel, and think; in the spirit of Cobra.

Participating artists

For De Cycloop, seven artists are developing work that stems from their own practice. These artists are engaged with movement, technique, sensory perception, and material research. Not static, but physical, active, and direct: work that moves and transports the viewer.