Art in Paradiso

The small museum is a tiny museum, visible only at night, housed in one of the announcement cabinets on the facade of Paradiso. Almost invisible to the public eye, amidst the busy daily life of Amsterdam and commuters racing by on the Weteringschans, the small museum sits and waits quietly for the sun to set. After sundown, city life changes gears, and Amsterdam’s vibrant nightlife comes to life. This is when the museum shines its light.Open only from dusk till dawn, the small museum zooms in on smaller, less prominent topics and asks us to slow down in our busy, sometimes hectic lives.

Normally, Paradiso's façade is full of concert posters designed by talented artists, illustrators, designers and photographers. Since Paradiso's regular programming was totally derailed in March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, the façade no longer hangs full of posters of concerts, but of artists' works. Every fortnight, a new artist gets a free pass to exhibit work on the meters-long facade.

Since Paradiso's last major renovation in 1993, ten stained-glass windows have been installed. Designed by artists Berend Strik and Hans van Houwelingen. They called this project 'The Modern Moral' and gave each window its own theme. Think cheerful things like creation, love, work, nature and death. This is what you need to know about our stained-glass windows.

Originally commissioned and presented by the small museum, the work was given a permanent place in Paradiso above the bar in the Upper Room. The neon light tubes of Our Polite Society's sculpture form the words 'pop' and 'rock' and, through their placement as a cross, allude to the history of the building that houses Paradiso. And wink at the worship of artists by you, as a current visitor to the former church.

In the decade that now still serves as a source of inspiration for much art and culture (Hurah! The 1980s!), artist John Körmeling, together with Henk Visch, placed a work in three parts on and near our building. Two glass sculptures (listening to the name octahedron) on the roof on the street side. A diamond shape in the pavement near the main entrance. And a clock on the front facade.