Foam Museum

Photography Museum in Amsterdam

Foam Museum is a hub for photography lovers. It is a large space in a lovely old building and as we have both studied photography and worked as photographers we were excited to visit.

Our trip coincided with the Viviane Sassen retrospective exhibition. To be honest, not a photographer we knew that much about as she is a Dutch Fashion photographer, but it was clear from all the posters put up around Amsterdam that this would be a popular exhibition. 

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Foam Museum Tickets

We bought our tickets online and most people in the queue were similar, showing barcodes/QR codes on their phones. Foam Museum is a big space though and they were taking entries on the door. We did visit in october though so not high season.

I think at peak times you’d be much safer booking your tickets online in advance. Online tickets are usually slightly cheaper too, so if you can that is always our recommended route to buying tickets.

You’ll find Foam featured on various passes including I Amsterdam City Card and Museumkaart.

Our experience at Foam Museum

Foam Museum exhibits photography. There is another photography museum in Amsterdam called Huis Marseille. This also does exhibitons, but additionally focusses on the history of photography.

Foam is a place to visit to see famous photographers original prints, but not in permanent exhibitions. This means you will see one big exhibition from a famous photographer with one or two other smaller exhibitions by perhaps lesser known, up and coming photographers. These will change throughout the course of the year.

Where am I going with this? Well, with predominantly one artist on display, you will be limited to seeing just that photographers work. I suppose if you were to compare it to somewhere like the Rijksmuseum, you will visit that just to see Rembrandt’s Night Watch masterpiece and all the other work which is on permanent display. At Foam you will see something new everytime they change their exhibitions.

The rooms

Upon entering Foam you are greeted by the selection of books on sale, postcards and other photographic items. This lives opposite the main entrance/exit where you show your entry ticket.

Foam Gallery

You are on the first floor as you enter the galleries across an iron grate, the rooms are clean, crisp, large and showcase the photography really well.

There are multiple galleries to wander through, some are more intimate than others, the mezzanine floor of one of the rooms held more personal portraits from Vivian Sassen behind glass which in some ways felt more personal than just the large wow factor prints.

Walk-through

On first glance what would appear to be a large corridor to walk through to the next room was transformed with bench seating and a panoramic slide show played across the opposite wall. This multimedia show was nicely done, although the music was a bit sombre for my taste.

Even more space

As we continued to explore we found room after room opening up to us. Some were small and focussed on only a few photographs, others were much larger with seating and more video wall art. I felt like the Foam Museum was a really beautiful space to showcase photography. It could easily focus on one artist throughout or the way the rooms were divided it could take you on a journey through a topic or style with multiple photographers.

Library

I’m calling this the library as there is a room at the front of the house which has lovely views over the canal and looking back into the room it has a winding staircase to a metal mezzanine floor with bookcases of photography books to explore.

You can ask me about the food art centrepiece on the table in the middle of the library room, but I’m not sure I could tell you what it means myself. It looked tasty though.

Cafe

There is a very nice cafe at the bottom of the stairs which would be a nice place to relax, enjoy some photography books or perhaps work on your own photography. You can check out your camera roll from the rest of Amsterdam, suitably inspired.

On the cafe walls is one of my favourite areas where they show the previous shows featured at Foam. It is a real litany of who’s who in photography and shows just how great Foam can be.

We will always check who is on show at Foam on our visits to Amsterdam as we love photography and it is such a lovely place to immerse yourself in the art form.

For the visitor Foam is also included with the I Amsterdam Card which is a real bonus.

Conclusion

Foam is now one of our favourite Amsterdam museums. Probably because we love photography so much. The space and building are just so beautiful and really highlight how photography can be a unique, thought provoking and a beautiful art form to enjoy.

Amsterdam has a thriving photographic scene which Foam is a major part of, so it’s well worth visiting.

Where is the Foam Museum

The Foam Museum is located along the Keizersgracht Canal which is one of the key canals of Amsterdam and also one of the most beautiful.

When we visited Amsterdam in October 24, we stayed at the Canal Suites Apartments Amsterdam which was a lovely 5-min walk along this canal to Foam. We’d highly recommend the Canal Suites if you were looking for self-catering accommodation in Amsterdam.

Foam Museum address:

Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS Amsterdam, Netherlands