Honourable members of the House of Representatives, It is with great concern that we look at the Temporary Test Act that will be voted on in your House on Tuesday 11 May. This new law means even more hurdles and restrictions for visiting culture. Restrictions that will be introduced but where the end date is not given. This new testing law could be a godsend for...
Just like in the world outside culture (call it capitalism), in the cultural sector itself you also see a huge payment gap between creators and 'the plush'. Only you can't talk about that taboo without being seen as a traitor.
Bossche Theatre Artemis is, after International Theatre Amsterdam, the best theatre company in the Netherlands. The company owes this to an illustrious past (Pauline Mol!!) and to Jetse Batelaan. This director recently received the prestigious Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale for his disruptive oeuvre. This consists largely of performances in which children take power, without...
The cultural sector is sometimes behind, but more often ahead. In the - otherwise very much to be welcomed in terms of content - advice issued by the Amsterdam Arts Council on the future of the local Stedelijk Museum, you can read that job security in the art sector is once again under pressure. Especially for young entrants from 'diverse' backgrounds: 'Preferably, the museum will make greater use of...
I actually experienced it once! In the middle of a theatre performance, an elderly lady, who had nothing to do with the story, walked onto the stage. She must have got lost in the interval and ended up behind the wings through a door that was accidentally open. While the actors were engaged in a deeply serious Hamlet, she came laconic
Conny Janssen Danst celebrates its 25th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam will be stage and laboratory for Conny Janssen, her dancers and her team for three weeks. A video installation, performance, live rehearsals and an exhibition will portray the point at which the group has arrived on its development journey. Unorthodox "My start with the group 25 years ago was...
In the Style Year, events mainly look back at the art movement that began 100 years ago. Yet there are also contemporary initiatives that look ahead, such as in Amersfoort. In the Keistad, the Style Pavilion is being built from scaffolding material. Twenty contemporary, mostly young, visual artists will give their own interpretation to the outside of the pavilion. They draw inspiration from the building...
Displaced paintings by Armando. Artists fleeing the city. A tinpot that brought financial disaster and summer festivals that attract tens of thousands of visitors every year. And you thought Amersfoort was boring? A footnote along the A1 motorway? Forget it. Let me tell you about this city struggling with its cultural identity. A story in eighteen impressions. Guilty landscape In his youth...
Why did I find the mythical stories about being an artist more interesting than the artworks I saw? I wondered this after visiting the exhibition GOED GEMAAKT (ode to the making process) at the Amersfoort art gallery KAdE. Only a single work of art touched me, while the stories about Daedelus, Pygmalion and the daughter of Butades fascinated me immensely....
Dissatisfied with the city's art policy, visual artists are leaving Amersfoort. Not physically, but with their work. In the coming year, they will exhibit together in numerous places in the Netherlands. They largely leave their own hometown behind. They have little faith in the municipality's newly developed cultural vision. Why? You can read about that below. And also that their own...
A major retrospective of the work of Fernando Botero (1932) is on show at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, entitled Botero: Celebrate Life! The rush of opening such an exhibition takes energy out of him, but strangely enough painting never exhausts him, he says in his studio in Monaco. 'I have never experienced anything more fulfilling than painting or sculpting. Painting takes you out of everyday reality. You forget your body - even your existence. It's intense, but while painting I don't feel any fatigue, even after working for seven or eight hours. Whereas at a cocktail party I'm exhausted after only half an hour.'
The first thing I think of when I think of Soviet design are the magnificent posters showing muscular men with bared bodies and sturdy women in wide skirts harvesting immense fields of grain, or enthusiastically operating heavy machinery in huge factory halls. So the first question that the Moscow Design Museum asks in its press release is right on target: why do we know so little about design...
It was dubbed 'the art heist of the century': the theft of seven famous paintings from the Kunsthal three years ago. The perpetrators turned out to be four Romanians with no clue about art. Writer Mira Feticu, originally Romanian, wrote a novel about it. Seven important paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal: a Van Gogh, a Picasso, two rare works by...
In Amersfoort, one art hall is empty and one art hall is full. KAdE, only recently completed and already successful, was dismantled five years after opening and moved to another, even newer building, across the railway line. However, the city council does not appear to have been properly informed about the financial consequences of this move and is now stuck with and noose of at least 10...
The great theatre maker Johan Simons has made it known that he wants to come to Rotterdam, to set up a major European theatre. He sees his chance now that a spot will become available in two years' time in the artistic direction of the Maasstad's city theatre company, the ro theatre. When they appoint Simons, they can think big, Simons says. And.
It was ball in Rotterdam on Thursday, 30 January. At the Municipal Culture Congress, a few hundred officials, local politicians and arts organisations gathered to talk about where they could help each other. It was supposed to be a positive day. There had been long enough complaining and arguing: look ahead, hopeful into the future. Even if the worst is yet to come.
A Belgian professor was good enough to compare the own revenues by venues from the US, the UK and Belgium; in all three countries, the companies raise about 42% of their budgets themselves. The innovation professor also reiterated that research shows that investing in culture contributes to economic prosperity ... a wisdom that ...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.