Museums in Haarlem - Dolhuys
Haarlem has several good museums.
There is Teylers Museum, Hollands eldest museum, housed in a spectacular historic building.
Further more we have Frans Hals Museum, Verwey Hal, Vishal, and last but not least: Dolhuys. That’s the one that I’m showing you today.
“Ever met a normal person? And…did you like it?” I chose the bodybuilder to lend my head to, but it’s not a convincing match, izzit? And I definitely do not come across as a normal person with that body, do I?! Ah well, it was fun to try.
Dolhuys, museum of psychiatry
Museum of psychiatry may not sound very appealing straight away, but it is a fantastic museum.
(Unfortunately all the information in the museum is in Dutch only, but I will translate where necessary.)
By the way: they call themselves: “Dolhuys (translates as Madness House) - Museum of the Mind”
The building
The building in which it is housed is chock-full of history.
Written in stone above the entrance gate: Haarlem Home for the Elderly.
In the past, as early as 1564 as we can see written here, the building has ‘housed’ a population of leapers, mental patients and criminals. Often a combination of two or three of the categories applied. Communities and authorities did not make much of a distinction at the time, since the main characteristic was that they were all unwanted by society. Parias and outcasts. People that had to be locked up and put away. In the Dolhuys you can see how these people were living back then, in tiny cells in horrible circumstances.
The building as is today is a series of rooms, floors and levels, with beautiful built-in cabinets and libraries.
Library dedicated to psychiatry inside Dolhuys Haarlem.
The exhibits
The exhibitions are interesting and well done. With a touch of quirk and fun, with lots of respect, information and creativity.
In one part of the museum are several cabinets of curiosities. Totally up my alley; collections and objects to tell something about different people.
The current big exhibition is (translated): Engineering the human. It’s about: is it possible to be perfect? Do we need to be perfect? How do we see ourselves and how do we look at others? How do we treat outsiders? Are they scary or inspiring? Do you have to blend in and be normal in order to be successful? Or is it the other way around and are real artists people who dare to be different?
Slogans/sentences that have been altered by crossing out letters and replacing them by other ones. Left: masturbation makes insane (as was long believed). Turned into: masturbation is amazing. On the right: Ever met a ‘normal’ person? Changed into: ‘Ever met a Perfect Person? Thus asking us: what is normal? Who is normal? Does normal exist?
Fun art installation in the front courtyard of Dolhuys. All the art you see exhibited in Dolhuys Museum is made by mentally ill people or people that struggle or struggled with mental illness.
Outsider artist Willem van Genk had some … obsessions…? Raincoats. Lots of raincoats. And trolleys, trains and zeppelins.
Shinichi Sawada is a Japanese man that lives in an mental institution. He does not communicate at all, other than through his art. Isn’t it amazing work?!
The Museumshop
Dolhuys’ museumshop is tiny but sells the coolest things at very reasonable prices.
Museum Cafe Thuys
The museum cafe is a pleasant, cosy place for a coffee or a lunch. In summer they have a small terrace outside. Also nice to visit if you are not going to the museum.
I highly recommend Dolhuys to anyone who visits Haarlem. And to who lives in Haarlem, obviously. And I don’t say that because I worked in the mental health care for 15 years.
AbNormal…Normal… in neon letters
Freud and his sofa; classic psychiatry, to be precise: psychoanalysis.
If you have any affinity with art, outsider art, outsiders, a different look on people and life, and/or with psychiatry and mental illness, then this is a museum for you!
Translation: Special Minds. Some people don’t measure themselves to the standards that society uses. Independent spirits, like many artists are. For some this is a big struggle, day in day out. Society finds them different, not fitting in. But their fantasy and unique art and creations inspire us and can enrich our lives.
Myrthe van der Meer is someone who has been and is very open in the media about her serious depression and following admittance in a psychiatric hospital. She wrote a book about it, titled PAAZ, that now has a follow-up called UP.
Anton Heijboer may well be Hollands best known and most successful artist with mental problems. He lived an eccentric life as a recluse, with women flocking around him. In the end he was known as the man with his four brides. Living all together, that is! Through his art and his life he was able to deal with his psychoses. He was an internationally acclaimed artist.
Have you ever visited a museum that was dedicated to mental illness, art by psychiatric patients, the history of psychiatry and so on? Would you be interested?
Rats… I would have loved visiting that together with you.
Greetje