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...
Amsterdam is once again spoilt for choice with Julidans, an international festival packed with impressive dance. The second festival night features Child by Peeping Tom. The work of this Brussels-based company is a phenomenon and I am a fan of it. Ever since its dance trilogy at NDT1: The missing door (2013), The lost room (2015), The hidden floor (2017) (reviews under...
Tackling tax fraud and money laundering, as we reported earlier, also affects the arts sector. Money can no longer be hidden in shadowy limited companies behind foundations, which in turn hide behind other companies and individuals. Everything has to be transparent from now on. A new measure was added last week, according to Artnet. The European union is going to introduce a...
Manufacturing screws and collecting art is on the face of it like Max Verstappen to Leonardo da Vinci. German billionaire Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Reinhold Würth, owner of Europe's largest fastener and assembly equipment company, has a total of 10 art museums in Europe and four art annexes in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, France and Spain. No art cathedrals...
This is an extraordinary story about crowdfunding avant la lettre and an urban 'bourgeoisie' that for once does not vote by refendum against throwing money at modern art. In Switzerland, no less. Kunstmuseum Basel made a small, fine, penetrating exhibition about it, still on show until 18 August, 2018. Ideal for a stopover on the way to Italy. If you do have a moment...
'I have knocked on the door of the Congress of Performing Arts a few times in recent years on my own initiative, really from the idea that we can do a lot more as venues in the Netherlands. But yes, every time I was there, people got enthusiastic, but does it stick?' Composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven is happy that he now serves as 'curator' of SPOT Live, the new...
Museum Gouda will soon show the exhibition Faith, Harmony and Silence by master painter Henk Helmantel. In 2008, he was named artist of the year. At the same time, there are major exhibitions by Helmantel in Gorssel and in Taiwan. His paintings are characterised by a gossamer texture, careful composition and sophisticated lighting. As subjects, he often chooses still lifes and tranquil...
Classic joke about the attendant: "Proudly, the Rijksmuseum's new attendant reports to the museum management at the end of his first working day. 'Mr director, I think you will be pleased with me. I have already sold two Picassos and one Apple today!' " (Source: www.debestemoppen.nl) Thus illustrating the supposed relationship of the traditional attendant to the modern...
Museum Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam hosts the largest exhibition in Europe of Surrealists. Famous names like Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Paul Delvaux and Roland Penrose. But also lesser-known gods like the outstanding Leonora Carrington and Francis Picabia. In 1970, the world-famous surrealist Salvador Dali visited the Boymans museum in person....
My father died in 1997. He came from a family of 10 children, five of whom have since died. My aunt Minke wrote a book about it: Broederziel alleen? The book stirred up a lot of emotions and had eight reprints in a short time. Grief for a deceased sibling turned out to be forgotten grief. In English, mourners are forgotten...
I tell you here why you should go to see Parsifal, and not even just because of the object by Anish Kapoor that plays a part in it. And you could also go to theatre one day, by the way. With The Girls. Fel theatre by our very best theatre company (according to Americans). The National Opera, Parsifal (opera) Four years ago, I attended Pierre Audi's...
'It took me 18 years to make a new recording,' Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich (1958) says with a modest smile. 'Just as much time as it takes a baby to come of age.' It is Wednesday, November 2. A special moment, because on that day Pogorelich's CD-less new recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas No 22 and No 24 will go on...
Among all the great titles vying for attention, debuts are often overlooked. Each month, in the series The Debut, A Quattro Mani discusses a notable debut novel of recent times. On your own two feet You are eighteen, nineteen and moving out of the house, studying. The world is at your feet, freedom beckons, your promising dreams are about...
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.'
Once, Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen had the Mauritshuis built with money earned in Brazil, including in the slave trade. Now a Brazilian is exhibiting in that same Mauritshuis with perfect 3D replicas of the backs of famous paintings. He made five new ones especially for this exhibition. Four well-known masterpieces from the Mauritshuis, but also a painting relating to the Brazilian adventures of the time.
Two major exhibitions honour the work of Constant Nieuwenhuys. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag shows his architectural utopia New Babylon, the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen outlines Constant's development from Cobra to this. We tour the Hague exhibition and explore the legacy of Constant's legendary project. Including some 3d photos.
Cultural philosopher Ad Verbrugge has never had very much with David Bowie. He told that at the beginning of his lecture, Friday night 18 December, as a special attraction of the David Bowie Late Night at the Groninger Museum. That was the first disappointment for the assembled fans. More were to follow. Indeed, Ad Verbrugge had not quite prepared for his...
The man's gaze turned upwards. He looks puzzled. Why is he hanging here now? Here, in Amsterdam? He comes from Spain, doesn't he? Then he hung in St Petersburg for years. This room, as deep red and imposing in size as the ''Spanish Hall'' in the Hermitage, by the way, looks an awful lot like the room where it hung for so long. Incidentally.
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...
With 'The oasis of Matisse', the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has put on a magnificent exhibition. Sixty years after there was last a major retrospective of Matisse in the Netherlands, his work is back on display in all its glory. So alongside 'Late Rembrandt' at the Rijksmuseum, there is another blockbuster in the capital. The thousands of visitors who attended the...
That it smells a bit like rotten fish in the Fifa offices is well enough known. The men's club of upstart youth team managers has refined its own revenue model considerably. So now it appears it is no longer just about beautiful women, cocaine, money and other things you put in brown envelopes, but about art. And then it gets interesting. According to a further...
In the rich tradition of writers who can drink each other's blood and foaming at the mouth with their pen, Writers Unlimited orchestrated a 'polemic'. In this debate, Abdelkader Benali expressed the voice of the people, and Saskia De Coster that of the elite. Both hacked at each other with help from moderator Elsbeth Etty. Result: a lot of incoherent banter.
Suppose you have a small capital in your pocket. And you go to the Tefaf for a day. It's a festive feeling: an art gift for yourself. But once inside, there's a good chance you'll be shocked. Because how to choose from 30,000 objects? In those 265 stands from renowned galleries from 20 countries: Argentina, United States, Canada, Italy, Japan? And which corner will you look in? Antiquities? Or modern, antiquarian, design? Will you go for a sculpture, a canvas, jewellery, chair or a book?
What makes an opera a success? The eccentrics, airheads, comedians, lyricists and tragicists think they know, proclaiming their point of view at the craziest times and not even bothering to intervene in the action. Welcome to the wonderful world of Prokofiev's L'amour des trois oranges, back on stage this month at the Amsterdam musical theatre.
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