REVIEW | ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ exhibition at De Nieuwe Kerk (until 4 April 2027)

5 September 2026. Inspired by a review in De Standaard of ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City‘ exhibition at De Nieuwe Kerk, Thanh and I travelled to the nominal capital of the Netherlands. To make it a proper excursion, we added a lunch a at Michelin-starred MOS Amsterdam and some walking around.

Amsterdam has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s most LGBTQIA+-friendly cities. It is a city of Pride, rainbow flags, canal parties, gay bars and a long tradition of queer visibility. But Amsterdam did not simply become the ‘Gay capital of the world‘ overnight. Behind that reputation lies a much more complicated history of love and repression, courage and fear, celebration and loss.

That history is at the heart of ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’, a major exhibition at De Nieuwe Kerk in the centre of Amsterdam. Opened during WorldPride Amsterdam 2026, the exhibition looks back at around four centuries of queer life in the city, bringing together more than 90 objects, artworks, images, films and personal stories.

It is a history that is sometimes joyful, sometimes shocking and often deeply moving. Above all, it is a reminder that the freedoms enjoyed by LGBTQIA+ people today were hard won – and can never simply be taken for granted.

A queer history in an unlikely setting

There is something particularly powerful about presenting this story inside De Nieuwe Kerk.

The Gothic church on Amsterdam’s Dam Square was once a place of religious teaching and doctrine, including the condemnation and exclusion of people whose lives did not fit accepted norms. Today, the deconsecrated church provides the setting for an exhibition celebrating queer lives, identities and relationships.

And the story literally begins inside the church itself. In 1632, Hilletje Jans married Willem Adriaensz in De Nieuwe Kerk. The exhibition displays the wooden pulpit behind which the marriage took place. There was, however, a remarkable secret behind the name Willem Adriaensz: Willem was actually Barbara.

Barbara had decided to live as a man so that she could marry the woman she loved. She cut her hair, dressed in men’s clothing and served in the army. Her identity was eventually discovered, the marriage was dissolved and she was banished from Amsterdam for 24 years.

It is an extraordinary story with which to begin an exhibition about queer Amsterdam. It also immediately challenges the idea that transgender and gender-nonconforming lives are a purely modern phenomenon.

The language has changed over the centuries, but same-sex relationships certainly did not begin in the 20th or 21st century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, women in relationships with other women could be described using terms such as ‘lollepot‘, while more respectable circles might speak of ‘soul friendships’. Whatever the terminology, such relationships could still attract punishment.

A ‘lollepot’ was a device to warm women’s private parts. ‘Pot’ is still a somewhat derogative, somewhat reclaimed word to describe lesbians.

Between 1730 and 1812, twelve Amsterdam women were prosecuted for what was then described as “unnatural fornication”. The number was relatively small partly because sexual relationships between women were less likely to be recognised by the authorities as sexual acts. Men faced much more brutal persecution.

When love could cost you your life

For centuries, homosexual men in Amsterdam faced the threat of prosecution for sodomy. Before 1811, such offences could carry the death penalty.

The exhibition tells the disturbing story of men meeting one another in Amsterdam while risking imprisonment, torture or execution. More than 200 men were executed on Dam Square for sodomy, not far from the location of De Nieuwe Kerk.

Even the architecture of the city became part of queer history. In the 18th century, the gallery of the Royal Palace was reportedly a popular cruising location. Men could signal their interest through apparently innocent gestures such as coughing or nudging someone with an elbow. Public toilets, dark corners and secluded streets later became similarly important meeting places.

One of the exhibition’s more unusual objects is a miniature version of a ‘double urinal‘, an architectural structure that offered men privacy for cruising. It is a reminder that queer history is not only found in grand political events or famous people. Sometimes it survives in the most unexpected corners of everyday urban life.

Jaap van Leeuwen, founder of the Shakespeare Club, the organisation that would become the COC, documented his own sexual encounters between 1935 and 1947 in an ‘Avonturenboekhouding‘, or adventure ledger. The meticulously kept record provides a remarkably intimate glimpse into a world in which queer people had to create their own spaces and networks.

From secret lives to visible communities

The exhibition moves chronologically through ten chapters, following the gradual transformation of queer life in Amsterdam.

One of its strengths is that it does not tell this history exclusively through objects. Because queer lives were often lived in secrecy, relatively few physical traces have survived. Instead, the exhibition combines objects with photographs, artworks, archive material, film and what it calls “whispered stories”: personal testimonies from historical and contemporary figures.

Among the stories are those of lesbian women, gay men, bisexual people, transgender people, intersex people and members of the wider queer diaspora.

There is also plenty of Amsterdam nightlife.

One of the exhibition’s most recognisable objects comes from ’t Mandje, the legendary bar on the Zeedijk. Founded by Bet van Beeren, an openly lesbian Amsterdam personality known for her motorbike and leather jacket, the café was not formally a gay bar. Rather, it was a brown café where gay men and women were welcome at a time when the police were actively targeting establishments with homosexual clientele.

The café even had a warning system. An owl would appear when the police were approaching, giving customers time to disappear.

The exhibition has borrowed two stools, the café’s sign and its owl, bringing a little piece of this legendary queer Amsterdam into De Nieuwe Kerk.

The struggle becomes political

The post-war decades brought major changes.

In 1946, the Shakespeare Club was founded and would develop into the COC, today one of the Netherlands’ best-known LGBTQIA+ organisations. The organisation’s history forms an important part of the exhibition’s story as it marks its 80th anniversary in 2026.

Yet progress was far from straightforward. In 1911, Article 248bis of the Dutch Penal Code had introduced a discriminatory higher age of consent for homosexual relationships. While heterosexual sex was permitted from the age of 16, the threshold for homosexual sex was 21. The provision was finally abolished in 1971.

From the 1970s onwards, queer activism became increasingly visible. Amsterdam saw demonstrations against homophobia and growing demands for equal rights. Archive footage shows protesters carrying messages that still have an unsettling contemporary resonance.

In 1987, the Homomonument was unveiled at the Westermarkt, commemorating gay men and women persecuted during World War II. In 1991, discrimination based on homosexual orientation was prohibited. In 1996, Amsterdam’s first Canal Parade transformed the city’s waterways into a celebration of LGBTQIA+ visibility.

And then came 2001.

The city that made history

On 1 April 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to open civil marriage to same-sex couples.

Amsterdam was at the centre of that historic moment. The exhibition is therefore being presented 25 years after the legalisation of same-sex marriage, alongside two other anniversaries: 30 years of Pride Amsterdam and 80 years of the COC.

These anniversaries provide a reason to celebrate. But ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ deliberately refuses to turn the story into a simple tale of progress.

The exhibition asks visitors to consider how fragile those achievements can be.

AIDS, loss and survival

One of the most moving sections deals with the AIDS crisis.

The exhibition includes a collection of mourning cards belonging to Erwin van Rheenen, commemorating friends who died of AIDS, many of them in their twenties and thirties. Their lives were cut tragically short.

The crisis claimed the lives of around 4,500 people in the Netherlands before effective treatment became available in the mid-1990s.

The exhibition also includes ‘Sanctuarium‘, a five-panel work by artist Thomas van Dun, who was diagnosed with HIV at the age of 20. Its imagery includes the inverted pink triangle, a symbol that gay men were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps and which was later reclaimed by the LGBTQIA+ movement.

The combination of historical persecution and the AIDS crisis makes clear that queer emancipation has never been a smooth upward journey.

Beyond the gay male story

One of the exhibition’s most important ambitions is to move beyond a history centred solely on white gay men.

There is a striking portrait by George Hendrik Breitner of the openly lesbian sculptor Sara de Swart. Another object illustrates the coded language through which lesbian women could identify one another in the 19th century.

The transgender community also receives substantial attention.

Photographs by Prins de Vos, for example, document young people caught up in the Netherlands’ severely overstretched gender-care system. Alongside these difficult stories are images celebrating transgender identity, beauty and resilience, including a portrait of Alejandra Ortiz, a Mexican transgender refugee who was named Woman of the Year by Harper’s Bazaar in 2024.

The exhibition also introduces visitors to the relatively recently recognised history of intersex people. Among the most poignant objects is the locked diary of Ket van Blokland. Its very existence speaks to the fear and secrecy surrounding feelings about her own body.

A more joyful counterpoint comes from theatre-maker Marleen Hendrickx, whose glitter-filled photographic collage relates to ‘Enfin, Barbin‘, a production about Herculine Barbin, the 19th-century French intersex person.

Dildos, drag and darkrooms

Queer history is not all political campaigns and courtroom battles.

As visitors walk across the graves of former ministers, aristocrats and admirals inside De Nieuwe Kerk, they encounter displays of drag costumes and sex toys. It is an intentionally provocative contrast between the solemn religious history of the building and the exuberant queer culture that developed in Amsterdam.

The 1980s brought a flourishing club scene, including legendary venues such as Club Roxy, where an extravagant outfit was practically a requirement for entry.

Artworks by Erik Elkema offer an abstract glimpse into the world of fetish rooms and darkrooms, leaving enough to the imagination while still documenting an important part of queer nightlife.

The exhibition deserves extra credit for this.

Too often, exhibitions about LGBTQIA+ history become exhibitions about activism, legislation and identity while quietly removing the “sex” from sexuality. ‘Queer Amsterdam’, the Pink City does not shy away from cruising, sexual encounters, nightlife, fetish and the physical side of queer life.

That makes its historical picture feel more honest.

An exhibition that feels familiar

Having said that, I cannot say that ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ is particularly surprising.

Before visiting, I had already come across this pattern in several exhibitions about LGBTQIA+ history and activism. The ingredients tend to be familiar: intersectionality, contemporary terminology and an effort to represent as many parts of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum as possible.

All of those things have their place. But there is also a curious tendency to jump from the achievements of the 1990s and early 2000s towards today’s debates, leaving much of the 2000s and 2010s comparatively underexplored.

It is something I have commented on before, and it continues to annoy me. Those decades are now history too, and they contain plenty of important queer stories that deserve to be remembered and examined.

In that respect, the exhibition sometimes feels as though it follows an increasingly familiar template rather than breaking new ground.

I also have to agree with the criticism raised by De Standaard: some of the stories deserve more space and explanation. The story of the allegedly bisexual King William II (Willem II), for example, is fascinating. His relationships with men reportedly left him vulnerable to blackmail, and there have been suggestions that this may have played a role in his willingness to accept the constitutional reforms of 1848 that reduced his political power.

That is an extraordinary story. It deserved more than a brief mention.

Don’t forget the I

There is, however, another aspect of the exhibition that deserves particular praise.

‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ does not forget the “I” in LGBTQIA+.

At a time when much of rainbow activism quite understandably focuses on the rights, recognition and struggles of transgender people, intersex people can easily become an afterthought. Their stories are far less visible, even within the broader LGBTQIA+ movement.

The exhibition makes a genuine effort to include them. The locked diary of Ket van Blokland is particularly powerful because it conveys something that statistics and political slogans cannot: the deeply personal experience of living with a body and identity that society may tell you should remain hidden.

That inclusion makes the exhibition’s claim to tell the history of the broader LGBTQIA+ community feel more convincing.

A pink triangle becomes a prism

The visual language of ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ is as carefully considered as its historical content.

A triangle is a recurring motif throughout the exhibition. It appears in the floor plan and as a carpet in the section dealing with the Homomonument. At the entrance, high angled walls create another triangular form.

The triangle carries a complicated history. It recalls the pink triangle imposed on gay men by the Nazis, but it has also become a symbol of queer resistance and remembrance.

The exhibition transforms the motif once again, using it as a prism. When light passes through the glass, it breaks into the colours of the rainbow.

It is a subtle alternative to the familiar rainbow flag, and one that works particularly well inside the church. Muted rainbow shades create a calm, cohesive atmosphere, while sunlight or spotlights can occasionally produce an actual rainbow across the exhibition.

It is a beautiful metaphor for the exhibition itself: history refracted through the present, revealing colours that were once deliberately hidden.

The story isn’t over

The final part of ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ brings the story into the present.

The exhibition recalls that transgender people in the Netherlands only gained the right in 2014 to change their gender marker without being required to undergo sterilisation. It also touches on the experiences of queer people from migrant and diaspora communities.

There is a reason the exhibition ends not with a triumphant “happy ending” but with a reminder that emancipation continues.

At an altar, visitors can light a candle and make a donation to organisations working for equal rights, equal treatment and equal recognition.

It is a particularly effective gesture in this setting. A church once associated with doctrine and exclusion becomes a place where visitors can reflect on those who fought to live openly and on those who are still fighting for that right.

A visit

The exhibition shares De Nieuwe Kerk with the ‘World Press Photo Exhibition 2026‘, which runs alongside it during the summer season. I have to admit that my expectations for ‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ were not particularly high. After the somewhat lukewarm review in De Standaard, I was expecting an exhibition that might struggle to live up to its subject.

In the end, I found it a worthwhile visit.

It is not a revolutionary exhibition, and much of its approach will feel familiar to anyone who has visited recent exhibitions about LGBTQIA+ history and activism. Some subjects could certainly have been explored in greater depth, and I would have liked to see considerably more attention paid to the 2000s and 2010s.

But the exhibition succeeds where it matters.

It brings together a remarkable range of stories, it puts queer history in a striking and historically loaded location, and it does not sanitise the sexual history of the community. The inclusion of cruising, sex, nightlife and fetish culture is welcome. So too is the attention given to intersex people, whose history is too often relegated to the margins even within LGBTQIA+ narratives.

Most importantly, Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City makes clear that Amsterdam’s reputation as a queer city was built over generations. The freedom to love, to live openly and to be yourself did not simply appear. It was fought for, celebrated, mourned and defended.

If you are in Amsterdam, go and see it.

‘Queer Amsterdam, the Pink City’ runs at De Nieuwe Kerk until 4 April 2027.

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