It was late morning when I entered the pastoral landscape of Museum Voorlinden with my almost two-and-a-half-year-old. I had wrongly assumed that late June spelt summer in The Netherlands and we were, therefore, inadequately dressed. It was a cloudy day, with the sun peeping through only occasionally like a high-profile host making an appearance now and then at their own dinner party just to assure guests they were around. The museum grounds were sprawling not only with manicured lawns but also pasture grounds for grazing cows, water bodies bedecked with lotus and undulating dune meadows. It was unlike any other museum I had visited. The main building even had glass walls, which meant you could frequently see visitors looking at the art.

I soaked in the porous environment as I gazed at Jan Fabre’s bronze sculpture The Man Who Measures the Clouds (1998). I stationed our picnic blanket in the vicinity of this sculpture of a man standing atop a small ladder holding upwards a large ruler, his head angled towards the sky. Later I read that the work referenced the wish of the infamous, incarcerated ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’, Robert Stroud to ‘measure the clouds’ were he to ever be released. The work felt dramatic against the cloudy, frequently sunless Dutch sky. It seemed to be so much about the specificity of perspective, the fact that whatever this inanimate sculpture might record through its measuring device would only be valid for its particular location. From where I was sitting, the same cloud would appear differently sized. To measure clouds is to contend with their instability and ephemerality, the absence of clear corners or contours. It is an inherently non-essential activity, like art making, whose source of pleasure is first and foremost self-directed, rendering an audience secondary, even extraneous. The overabundance of clouds meant that Skyspace (2016), designed by James Turrell specifically for Museum Voorlinden, was, by default, in its light programme mode. Instead of seeing the open sky through a rectangular slot, we experienced the gradually shifting spectrum of coloured illumination, a delight for my little one who is now proficient at recognising colours. We bathed in the programmed light.

By now I was beginning to feel a little more at ease. I am not accustomed to visiting museums alone with a toddler who is very clear about his preference for the outdoors. My motive for coming was to visit Bhasha Chakraborti, who was, at the time, inhabiting the Ekard Residency with Hania Mariam Luthufi. It was indeed a pity to be in such great proximity to so many stellar museums with a toddler who would much rather be on trains, trams, cars and buses. The day before, though, I had immense success at the Children’s Book Museum at The Hague, easily among the best museums in the world because of how lovingly it caters to children of all ages, bringing to life the worlds they know through storybooks. Why couldn’t art museums also incorporate play into their display? I dreamed of a world in which the art critic mother could be more easily rehabilitated as a viewer.

I had read about a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room that one could easily enter without having to pre-book a slot. Thanks to my inability to follow directions, before we could arrive at the Infinity Mirror Room we sighted a few playful works that teased one's senses, among them Swimming Pool (2016) by Leandro Erlich. The water glinted invitingly blue. It was a mirage, though. A nearby stairway led you to the bottom of the pool where it became evident the watery surface was a glass illusion. Visitors could be seen mimicking the act of swimming, pretending to be immersed or afloat. I enjoyed that my toddler’s curiosity was aroused, but I didn’t feel convinced by the work’s conceptual merit. It felt clever and expertly produced, much like all of Ron Mueck’s oversized realistic sculptures of white people. There’s a tenderness to the process, but the works rely on the spectacle of scale. You, the viewer, are diminished by the work.

There’s a tenderness to the process, but the works rely on the spectacle of scale. You, the viewer, are diminished by the work.

Richard Serra’s corten steel sculpture Open Ended (2007-08), though similarly sizeable, seemed to transcend space. Weighing 216 tonnes, four metres high, 18 metres long and seven metres wide, it is composed of six vaulted steel plates that have been moulded to form a maze. Like with Erlich’s Swimming Pool, the physical act of navigating the work activates its dimensions. At first, the sculpture appears like two leaning curves, but as you steadily make your view through the narrow corridors, you have the sensation of being momentarily disoriented. The space seems to expand as it contracts. You are simultaneously lost and found.

Though also enormous in scale, Roni Horn’s magnificent cylindrical sculptures (2012-13) felt more mystical in comparison to all the other works on display. Produced from fine sand from northern Norway that has, allegedly, never been contaminated with either plastic or glass, each of the five sculptures, made in terracotta moulds, weighs 4,500 kilos. Yet they seem amazingly translucent and appear as if they are about to levitate. Each one is a different pastel shade and appears voluminous, their surfaces alluringly glazed. I would have loved to have been swallowed by these works, except I could see my toddler struggling to resist the temptation to touch what he was so clearly awed by. Later, when I discovered the work’s title, I felt sure it perfectly embodied my state of being at that moment—Untitled (“The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in the middle of life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman … into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon. She had accepted this submergence as philosophically as all her other trials, and now, in extreme old age, was rewarded by presenting to her mirror an almost unwrinkled expanse of firm pink and white flesh, in the centre of which the traces of a small face survived as if awaiting excavation.”).

Though finally on the path to the Infinity Mirror Room, I had to pause at Maurizio Cattelan’s Untitled (2001), the opposite of life-sized. My toddler crept to the floor for a better view of the mini built-in elevators seemingly going up and down, the doors occasionally opening and shutting for no one, or an imaginary mouse, we concluded. I had to tear him away from this piece so we could arrive at the Infinity Mirror Room before hunger could strike. There was one person before us. The guard set a timer before he let someone in. It was soon our turn and we had about 30 seconds to soak in the interplay of constantly changing lights reflecting endlessly across mirrored glass and water. Of course, we took a quick selfie. But we were out before we knew it. I continue to wonder if the work works because of the feeling of insufficient time. Just as you feel you are arriving on the brink of a revelation, a knock on the door informs you it is time to leave. It is as if time is being pitted against the perception of infinity. Does the work work because you spend more time waiting to enter than you do once inside? My toddler wanted to go in again and again, but I felt it was important to preserve the sanctity of the briefness of the allotted time. I left the museum feeling triumphant about all I had, in fact, managed to see.