Better to die standing than to live kneeling. The statement is fresh in memory after the murder in the Lange Leidse Dwarsstraat, as a mantra in praise of Peter R de Vries, his fearlessness, non-conformism, straightforwardness and honesty. This same statement jumps out even from the first paragraphs of the introduction to the biography of poet Jef Last, written by Rudi Wester.1....
Is it okay to be a proud alien in a world where marginalised people feel alienated? The LGBTQ+ project group at Framer Framed's Open Studio for i-psy participants have created a utopian future where differences and diversity are celebrated and recognised as something beautiful. Proud Aliens is the annual exhibition of the i-psy Arts, Amsterdam, created in collaboration with Framer...
It is very easy not to dwell on things. For instance, I learned at school that we sailed to the East to get nutmeg and pepper. Stuff that just rolled off the trees into the boats there and that we could sell very expensively here. Sugar, another thing. That came to us from plantations just like that,...
In the dead of night on 9-10 June, the restored Golden Coach was hoisted over the roof of the Amsterdam Museum in a wooden box. A special and spectacular moment that took place in the middle of the night because the tram lines had to be shut down for this major operation. Everything went well and the Golden Coach was lifted last night....
The Amsterdam Museum will open its doors on Saturday 5 June after a closure of more than six months. From Saturday, visitors can revisit the museum at its primary location on Kalverstraat and the Amsterdam Museum wing of the Hermitage. On 1 July, Museum Willet-Holthuysen will also open after major maintenance. Visitors can visit the Amsterdam Museum in addition to its permanent offerings...
The exhibition The Golden Coach opens at the Amsterdam Museum on Friday 18 June. After a restoration of more than five years, the Golden Coach is back on public display for the first time. The carriage will be on loan to the Amsterdam Museum until February 2022. With this, the carriage temporarily returns to the city that used it in...
For a week or two, the word uncollect has been in my head. An Amsterdam politician suggested selling Roy Lichtenstein's As I opened Fire. Estimated proceeds: 40 to 50 million. With that money, Amsterdam's art sector could be saved and, if there was some left over, work by new artists could also be bought. The politician himself holds...
A sleek, snow-white art temple in the middle of the Congolese interior. What does that mean? Renzo Martens talks about his new documentary White Cube, and the art project that allows plantation workers to buy back their land. Premiering at IDFA and in Lusanga, Congo.
The chance of encountering a hedgehog or an (abandoned) nest with eggs in real life is unfortunately getting smaller and smaller with the shrinking area of nature and the extinction of many animal species, but the 'realness' of Helmantel's paintings still lets you enjoy these beautiful phenomena.
This week, a massive explosion of 2,700 tonnes of poorly preserved ammonium nitrate destroyed most of the Lebanese capital Beirut. For German-Lebanese writer Pierre Jarawan, who lives in Munich, the disaster is yet another black page in the history of Lebanon, which he himself has only just come to know.
With the storm of publicity, Vincent van Gogh's 'Weeds Burning Farmer' (1883) seems to be the star of the new exhibition Barbizon of the North - The Discovery of the Drenthe Landscape 1850-1950. The centrepiece of the exhibition, as befits a good diva, is still some time away. It is 'fashionably late'. However, a spot has already been reserved. The...
People used to think it was three times nothing, but today the paintings of water lilies and wisteria are the most famous canvases by French painter Claude Monet. We visited his gardens in Giverny and took a peek through the eyes of the master. Mugs and socks When you think of the painter Claude Monet, the first thoughts probably go to his colourful canvases...
The much nudity and sex in Angelica Liddel's adaptation of Hawthorne's famous novel are a bit old-fashioned. The Spanish language is the real attraction. In his review of Angélica Liddell's play 'The Scarlet Letter' on this website, Wijbrand Schaap calls the scene with a naked black man "a painful low point". According to Schaap, the man is treated by Lidell as...
Antonio Mancini, Lorenzo Delleani and Fillippo Palizzi, who does not know these influential Italian painters? Apparently a lot of people don't. Don't feel guilty, even for many art historians the names don't ring a bell. This is in contrast to Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Bernini and Titian. These artists need little introduction: Italian art, culture and identity are usually drawn from...
Woest is a cultural education festival for and by young people and offers a place for experimentation outside education. Woest is a unique partnership between education, culture providers and young people. In fact, what makes Woest unique is that young people themselves come up with new things that can make education more fun and better. The pupil's voice is always the starting point. In recent months,...
In the struggle for women's suffrage, the 'ordinary' housewife from Ten Boer in Groningen played just as vital a role as the widely praised Aletta Jacobs. She too walked in demonstrations, appeared in her grandmother's costume during protests and sewed a banner for the movement in her kitchen or living room. Like her peers from the rest of the Netherlands, she fought...
The end of the year is approaching. So the lists fly around our ears again with 'most beautiful', 'best', 'most unforgettable', 'most moving'... fill in the blanks. I think compiling top-soaps is actually a typically male thing, but I'm not that bad. Here are three CDs you wouldn't have wanted to miss this year - in no particular order. Louise Farrenc: Variations for Piano Biliana Tzinlikova,...
How do you make a beautiful and personal documentary about a hero? And what if your hero is a filmmaker and has already made beautiful footage himself? How free can you be with your subject matter? For a long time, my problem with IDFA has been that the documentaries are so well behaved, so focused on the subject and not on the medium itself. In...
Searching for what I stand for and what path I should take, time and again I come across facts that confuse and amaze me. I live in a country where only a single woman is in De Volkskrant top ten most influential people - in tenth place, that is. Only three out of 100 young Dutch millionaires...
The Flemish waffle baker at the Willy Wonka Wafl Factory in the Burton Cafe has seen all the Tim Burton films, he says from between a sleek hipster beard. 'Especially since you had to prepare the menu,' I say. The menu at the - temporary - Burton Cafe in exhibition space C-min includes: Charlie Chocolate Wafl, Scissorhands Wafl, Oompa Loopa Wafl, Beetlejuice...
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...
The feeling of walking around in a bazaar straight out of one of the fairy tales of a thousand - and - one nights. Your eyes feast; colourful Persian carpets, atmospheric lanterns and exclusive 'merchandise'. With the new exhibition Iran- Cradle of Civilisation, the Drents Museum takes visitors to one of the oldest civilisations in the world. For the...
The Holland Festival presents Hyena, in which Mollena Lee Williams-Haas recounts how she kicked her alcohol addiction. Her husband Georg Friedrich Haas wrote the music to accompany her blood-curdling account. She is accompanied by Klangforum Wien and conductor Bas Wiegers, who also performed the world premiere two years ago. Hyena can be heard once at Muziekgebouw aan het IJ on Wednesday 13 June....
Music and images, it remains a tricky combination. Do you see a picture with music, or do you hear music with a picture? That question was not answered unequivocally at the opening concert of the Holland Festival. The slowly changing colours of Gerhard Richter's canvases were matched by Marcus Schmickler's slowly fading sounds. While Richter's Patterns soon became boring,...
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