PRESS RELEASE | Dancing skeletons and a maze with a missing exit: this is BARBARIAN by Oscar Peters

Dancing skeletons, gaping mouths, and a green maze with slowly moving walls. At Monopole, the artist Oscar Peters (1981) is building BARBARIAN, a monumental, haunted house inspired by fairground attractions, horror films, and amusement parks. Peters is fascinated by the never-ending human need to test the boundaries of fear. Wooden structures, theatrical effects, and strokes of paint are deliberately left exposed and turn the installation into a large-scale, handmade spectacle.

Peters uses all the familiar ingredients of a classical haunted house – skulls, ghosts, a maze, and other archetypal tropes – to create a world where terror slowly makes way for questions about who we are and why we exist. In the end, the act of dwelling on such questions in a house with an exit that is difficult to find may well be the most terrifying thing of all. ​ ​

Dancing skeletons ​
​BARBARIAN features hanging, dancing skeletons, while shaking their bones, they find themselves somewhere between slapstick and terror: simultaneously comical and gruesome. Just like in classical haunted houses, humour and fear are constantly taking turns, a field of tension that keeps coming up throughout the installation. ​

Now, where exactly was that exit? ​ ​
​At the centre of BARBARIAN is a green maze made from imitation stone walls. These walls are slowly rotating, causing the structure to constantly change and making it seem as if the exit is disappearing even further out of sight. Hanging above them are giant gaping mouths that unexpectedly move downwards only to come to an abrupt standstill right above the visitors’ heads. Peters based them on the mechanical claws used in fairground attractions, but transformed them into threatening sculptures that play with ancient fears: being eaten and losing control. ​

A ticket to the end ​
​Waiting at the end of the maze is a metres-high skull, built on top of a ticket machine. It is as if death itself is selling tickets. Visitors are offered a choice here: to buy a ticket to the end of existence or to once again be swallowed up by the maze. Positioned across from the skull is jester’s cap made from fabric, enticing visitors to step inside. While peering through the eye holes, visitors will once again be confronted with the towering skull on the other side. Through the eyes of the jester, they are thus literally looking death in the eye. For centuries, jesters have been holding up a mirror to us, making us laugh at things we would rather look away from. ​

Cabinet of curiosities ​ ​
​Filled with board games, toys, books and other historical source material on the subjects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century haunted houses and fairground attractions, this cabinet gives an insight into the fascinations of Oscar Peters. He has been building this collection from an early age, including the 1985 Spookslot (Ghost Castle) board game, which is now also being played by a new generation, and the much-loved pop-up book Haunted House by Jan Pieńkowski, a staple in children's rooms since 1979. The collection shows how images from popular culture evolved into the building blocks for BARBARIAN.

Oscar Peters, Slasher, 2017, photo by Merce WouthuysenOscar Peters, Ghost, 2026, photo by Chris Wienk

About Oscar Peters ​
​Oscar Peters (1981) obtained a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam) and a master’s degree in Fine Art from Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania). He predominantly creates large kinetic sculptures that often convey the huge sense of joy he had while making them. Many of his artworks thump, rattle, squeak, or creak. His work show his fascination for danger and things that are staged to be ‘scary’. One of his best-known installations is The Savage, an eight-metre-high rollercoaster he built in 2020 in a huge factory hall in The Hague for his exhibition VOLTA. His work is shown around the world, with exhibitions from the United States to Japan. From 13 September, his newest installation, BARBARIAN, will be on view at Monopole. ​

Currently at Monopole ​
​Located in the centre of Schiedam, Monopole is a new art space that opened last year in September. Monopole allows visitors to experience art that is just a little bit different. Still on view up to and including 2 August is work by the four artists who were nominated for the art award Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs: afra eisma, Levi van Gelder, Sondi, and Malik Saïb-Mezghiche. ​

Monopole owes its existence to structural support from Fonds Schiedam Vlaardingen e.o., De Groot Fonds, and Elise Mathilde Fonds. The exhibitions are also made possible by Fonds 21 and Mondriaan Fonds. ​

Also read the first press release about BARBARIAN

Opening ​
​The festive opening of BARBARIAN for invited guests will take place on Saturday 12 September 2026, From Sunday 13 September, the exhibition will be open to the public. Members of the press are warmly welcomed to attend the opening. Please apply to attend via pers@stedelijkmuseumschiedam.nl. ​

Note to editors ​
​Click here to visit the image bank where you can download the press images included in this release. New images of the installation will also become available here from the first week of September. Please always cite the correct credits when using any of these images.

Click here to visit the exhibition page.