Photo courtesy of Hans van der Meer and Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen.
TITLE_NAME :
Goalkeepers
30/05/2026 - 04/07/2026
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Hazenstraat 26
1016 SP Amsterdam
woutervanleeuwen.com
We are so used to watching football on television that we have almost forgotten what football looks like at the amateur level and what role the game plays in our daily lives. The day before the World Cup in Mexico, Canada, and the US, Hans van der Meer reminds us of this with Goalkeepers . For years, Van der Meer toured European amateur pitches and captured countless goalkeepers; the solitary figure in a virtually empty landscape.
Hans van der Meer (NL, 1955) demonstrates that this logic is not unfounded. With Van der Meer, there are no children walking onto the pitch with the players, no hymns or national anthems, no packed stands, no previews and post-match analyses, but 22 men in shirts that are a bit too tight on a poor pitch, with one and a half men and a horse's head along the sidelines. You can't get much further from the World Cup or the Champions League than that.
Between 1995 and 2012, Van der Meer toured European amateur football fields. Everywhere and nowhere, he stood on a stepladder by the sidelines. This resulted in the acclaimed * Hollandse Velden* (1998). This was followed by *Vlaanderen*, and subsequently he traveled throughout Europe: from Karlsbad in the Czech Republic to Dublin, and from Budapest to Celerina in Switzerland. The book that emerged from this, * European Fields*, was published in 2006 in five languages—unique for a photobook, and certainly for a photobook about sport. * European Fields* was also the title of the exhibition that opened simultaneously at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and subsequently traveled the world;
30/05/2026 - 04/07/2026
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Hazenstraat 26
1016 SP Amsterdam
woutervanleeuwen.com
We are so used to watching football on television that we have almost forgotten what football looks like at the amateur level and what role the game plays in our daily lives. The day before the World Cup in Mexico, Canada, and the US, Hans van der Meer reminds us of this with Goalkeepers . For years, Van der Meer toured European amateur pitches and captured countless goalkeepers; the solitary figure in a virtually empty landscape.
Hans van der Meer (NL, 1955) demonstrates that this logic is not unfounded. With Van der Meer, there are no children walking onto the pitch with the players, no hymns or national anthems, no packed stands, no previews and post-match analyses, but 22 men in shirts that are a bit too tight on a poor pitch, with one and a half men and a horse's head along the sidelines. You can't get much further from the World Cup or the Champions League than that.
Between 1995 and 2012, Van der Meer toured European amateur football fields. Everywhere and nowhere, he stood on a stepladder by the sidelines. This resulted in the acclaimed * Hollandse Velden* (1998). This was followed by *Vlaanderen*, and subsequently he traveled throughout Europe: from Karlsbad in the Czech Republic to Dublin, and from Budapest to Celerina in Switzerland. The book that emerged from this, * European Fields*, was published in 2006 in five languages—unique for a photobook, and certainly for a photobook about sport. * European Fields* was also the title of the exhibition that opened simultaneously at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and subsequently traveled the world;