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Poster Lucie in the Sky with Diamonds

So can a recorder. Go to Lucie in the Sky with Diamonds, by Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

Dankzij Bas Hoeflaak staat de blokfluit weer even in de belangstelling. De slappe lach veroorzakende scene gaat inmiddels de wereld rond, mede door het verre van virtuoze fluitspel van de amateurfluitist met stalen gezicht. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIkVov28ePo Dankzij een minstens even grappige speling van het lot zat ik woensdagmiddag bij een ‘vriendenrepetitie’ van Amsterdam Sinfonietta, druk bezig met de komende tournee met… 

Read More "So can a recorder. Go to Lucie in the Sky with Diamonds, by Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
Still from the documentary White Balls on Walls by Sarah Vos

White Balls on Walls: fascinating image of a museum in panic

There is quite a stir among mostly people of certain (white) colour and age about a documentary now playing in movie houses. In White Balls on Walls, maker Sarah Vos shows how the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has to get used to a new era in which old self-evidences are shaking to their foundations. The uproar revolves mainly around the artworks created by established... 

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Scenefoto

Nostalgia with Huub Stapel

At the end of the premiere at Haarlem's Stadsschouwburg, actor Huub Stapel (68) fills up several times as he talks about his parents. Silence falls. The performance Only Family is mainly a tribute to Stapel's parents from memories and reflections, but also personal confessions. The most prominent being his urinary problem due to a too-small bladder; many... 

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still from the vpro series our man with the taliban, with Thoams erdbrink talking to a taliban fighter in an orchard

How much demonic power does the artist have?

What would the world look like if art had had the power that book burners and iconoclasts have attributed to it over the centuries? In the fascinating documentary series 'Our Man with the Taliban', Thomas Erdbrink takes a rather perilous journey through an Afghanistan abandoned by the 'civilised' West. We see a world where book burners and iconoclasts... 

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Created with Midjourney AI at the prompt: famous actor taking driving lessons

A driving licence for the professional actor - In Perspective 14

In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: training as a learning process for a sector. Driving licences and absenteeism policy The youth theatre company was a collective of actors. They were jointly responsible and they kept as much control as possible over everything, including transport to their performances. So an actor with a driving licence was then... 

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Stage photo by Jan Versweyveld

My dear Gunsteling you don't want to see and must have seen

Assault and finally rape of a 14-year-old girl by a bonkers vet. An enjoyable evening at the theatre is different, until the applause of this arguably (once again) best Dutch theatre production of the year relieves you of the harsh struggle. Author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and director Ivo van Hove emphasise that both 49-year-old vet Kurt and his minion, the farmer's daughter, are severely traumatised... 

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Culture Monitor logo

Dramatic decline in self-employed in cultural sector - Culture Monitor shows growth among architects and designers

Of the 1910 self-employed people still working behind the scenes of the performing arts in 2019, only 1090 will be left in 2022. So what we suspected turns out to be true: technicians have gone up onto the roof to install solar panels and heat pumps, audience workers found a destination in healthcare. Although the Culture Monitor does not capture this migration, it is clear 

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New results of in-depth marketing research by Boekwerk KVB

CPNB annual figures: in search of the S10 of Dutch-language literature

'Dutch-language music has been unabatedly popular for years in a variety of genres; from pop to hip-hop, competing with English-language music. That's where you see what you can achieve with attention. The same can happen with books.' This quote by author Gustaaf Peek, recorded in a press release from the Authors' Union, is quite inspiring. The press release, in which the advocate of 1,750 Dutch writers... 

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Wil van der Meer - photo by Peter Olsthoorn

The butcher in Roelofarendsveen, his unwanted gay son and Annie M.G.

Sometimes you suddenly discover a gem of culture, banned from playlists by the tough theatre market. Like Wil van der Meer with his French chanson programme of translated songs by Annie Schmidt. As an actor, singer, director and teacher, Wil van der Meer is not first rate, but equally indispensable to Dutch culture. The numerous, indispensable roles... 

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Abstract Book cover - Masso, The river is a wound full of fish

Powerful literary debut by Colombian Lorena Salazar Masso

With The river is a wound full of fish, Colombian Lorena Salazar Masso makes a powerful literary debut. What does it mean to be a mother, when do you actually BE a mother? Can you be a mother even if you did not give birth to your child yourself? As a mother without a child, are you still a mother? That is the theme of the... 

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Photo of presentation with participants Cathelijne Broers, Renée Steenbergen and Rien van Gendt.

4 coming revolutions involving art and money.

The Dutch government distrusts citizens. And that stands in the way of a healthy art sector. This emerged on 17 January during a well-attended symposium at Amsterdam's Veem House. The occasion was the essay published in book form by Renée Steenbergen, who also published articles on this site. At the event, co-organised by Veem and Platform Beeldende Kunst, many makers were... 

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Podium Gift Card 2023

Podium gift card sales in Corona year 2022 already back to 2013 level.

Nice message from the Theatre and Concert Visit Promotion Foundation: last year, we went out again quite often after the lockdowns, and also gave each other a unique experience as a gift quite often. 138,000 stage visits were gifted. That earned the SPTC a nice 6.6 million. That means the Pokadoka (Podium Gift Card) included an average gift of 48 euros.... 

Read More "Podium gift card sales in Corona year 2022 already back to 2013 level.
Scenefoto uit toneelstuk met op de voorgrond Mark Rietman

Evening of fun with relationship arguments in Family Game

Jacqueline Blom en Mark Rietman wekken direct de lachlust en treurnis op als vertwijfelde kinderen van gescheiden ouders aan het begin van Famiespel. De scherpe tragikomedie wordt echter allengs meer een klucht die goed is voor een avondje lachen. In Familiespel tonen Jacqueline Blom, Bas Hoeflaak en Annick Boer zich van hun beste kant als acteurs, en genoot ik het… 

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Created with Midjourney AI, via the prompt: dog staring picasso style

Beware the new myths of anti-woke

Scored a new bullshit bingo card, today. 'Art must no longer tingle, I quit'. Big headline in a quality newspaper, with below it the terrible story of gallery owner Jeanette Dekeukeleires of Gallery Art Kitchen. The 60-year-old says she is quitting her job because nothing more is allowed. (Read the story here) For instance, she received complaints from young people about the famous PSP poster with that naked woman.... 

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Book cover The Art of Different

6 proposals for cultural innovation

This is a pre-publication from the book The Art of Different, which will be available from 17 January 2023 via the author's site The arts sector is vulnerable, as was unmistakably demonstrated during the pandemic years. It is also clear that these are not just temporary setbacks, but problems of a structural nature. These were already in play before Corona but were anticipated... 

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In Perspective #13 - A GOOD COUNCIL FOR ROTTERDAM? (II) - New version.

The Rotterdam Council for Arts and Culture (RRKC) has been disbanded from 1 January 2023. I wrote about this in June this year2, and earlier the editor-in-chief did3. At that time, formal decision-making in Rotterdam had yet to take place. Given the question marks in the city council, it is safe to say that the college finally pushed through the dissolution. The... 

Read More "In Perspective #13 - A GOOD COUNCIL FOR ROTTERDAM? (II) - New version.
Stray elephant is kindly welcomed by the herd

Culture Press now has its own server on Mastodon. Read why here.

This site became big thanks to Twitter and Facebook. We were also created at roughly the same time. In 2009, Twitter was just getting off the ground a bit, and the Netherlands still thought Hyves was going to be all the rage, while Belgium was already on Facebook. Anyway, tl;dr: social media was still fun. Only in the years that followed did... 

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What is left of love in the midst of the everyday grind? Perfect days is a novel about the power of imagination

A story about love, but above all an ode to imagination. Perfect Days by Spanish writer Jacobo Bergareche is a passionate novel. Deadly marriage With the excuse that it is necessary for his work, Spanish journalist Luis visits a conference in Austin, Texas. But actually, the trip is mostly an excuse for his dead-blooded marriage to Paula... 

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Paolo Giordano ©Marc Brester-aquattroman.co.uk

Where to find solace and safety in a shaky world? Bestselling author Paolo Giordano searches for a Tasmania

What do you hold on to when not only the world is tottering, but also your own life? Where then can you find a safe place, a future? That is what Tasmania, Paolo Giordano's new book, is about. Crisis What came first: the worries about climate change and other world crises, or the crisis in his own life? The first-person narrator in Tasmania, a... 

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created by Midjourney AI with the prompt: black female artist exposition

The art world is still white and male.

The website where the Dutch umbrella organisation of museums, the Museum Association, keeps track of audience and number of people employed by its members was unreachable today. Perhaps that is because today the leading website Artnet also came out with revealing figures on the arts sector in the US. The report, titled The Burns Halperin Report, includes an overview of the... 

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'Someday I will allow myself to cry.' Roberto Saviano made a graphic novel about his devastated life after 'Gomorrah'

Since Roberto Saviano published his book Gomorrah and incurred the hatred of the Italian mafia, he has been living in hiding. What that is like, the graphic novel I'm still alive shows and feels razor-sharp. Roberto Saviano is 12 when he witnesses at first hand the murder of a man in his neighbourhood by the mafia. Fifteen years later,... 

Read More "'Someday I will allow myself to cry.' Roberto Saviano made a graphic novel about his devastated life after 'Gomorrah'

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