Sarah van Sonsbeeck

Sarah van Sonsbeeck (1976, Utrecht, The Netherlands) lives and works in Amsterdam. Fundamental to her artistic exploration is the investigation of the formal and conceptual qualities of gold. She uses gold as a medium for minimalist works which engage in a dialogue both with their surroundings and topical issues. Taking the gold bar as a standard, the artist repeatedly shapes different states of the material in her works. As such, Van Sonsbeeck allows the gold to take on many different shapes and forms, from a puddle on the floor to a finely woven tapestry. Van Sonsbeeck succeeds in a critical as well as poetic artistic transformation of the historical foundation of our current financial system. For centuries, gold has been associated with wealth, power, and purity. Using gold as an artistic medium, she not only questions the value and worth of this material, but also of art itself.

Her work furthermore focuses on the thin permeable line between interior and exterior, without concern for the facade. This detour brings her to an investigation of the more immaterial side of architecture, in which she scrutinizes the small elements that determine how we live in our homes, the things the architects cannot control (such as the noise our neighbors make). She amplifies these elements and devises shields against them, but also welcomes the unpredictable and reveals the minute but intimate relationships between people who don't necessarily know each other. Sarah van Sonsbeeck practices architecture of the immaterial, though no less fundamental, kind.

Van Sonsbeeck studied architecture at TU Delft (MA) and art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (BA), Amsterdam. In 2008-2009 she was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, and in 2022 at Jester (formerly Flacc), Genk, Belgium.

Solo exhibitions include Moles of Modernism, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (2023); Moles of Modernism, Sculptures at the Parc, Parc Broekhuizen (2023); Moles of Modernism, The Glazen Huis, Amsterdam (2022); The State of Things, Kunsthalle Emden, Emden (2022); Moles of Modernism, Zone2Source, Amsterdam (2021); Entering the Studio, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2020); we may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2017); Some Lies Are Extremely Beautiful, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2017); Mistakes I've Made, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2014); Informational Weather, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2012); and Things to Do in Mönchengladbach, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2011).

Group exhibitions include IJsselbiënnale, Leuvenheim (2025); Amsterdam Museum: Women of Amsterdam, Amsterdam (2024); Resilient Rebels, Kunstmuseum Helmond (2023); Vienna Biennale, MAK Museum Vienna (2019); Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018); and Design Column #6 Dataism, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2013).

Her work is held in public collections including the Kröller-Müller Museum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, MoMA New York, MAK Museum Vienna, De Nederlandsche Bank, ING Collection, and AkzoNobel Art Foundation.