Art & Culture

Ugliest building

31 August, 2010 - 19:30 |

Office building ‘The Rock’ at the Zuidas is among the candidates on the shortlist of the election of the Ugliest Building of the Netherlands 2010, organised by NRC Handelsblad. Incidentally, the list contains buildings that are far uglier. Should the paper organise an election of the Ugliest Building of the Netherlands of All Times, then the Ibis Hotel near Central Station will be on the shortlist. (Via Trendbeheer)

Staalmanpark bear ‘sturdy yet cosy’

30 July, 2010 - 09:07 |
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At the Staalmanpark in Nieuw-West, a 10-meter high bear with a pillow under his arm will appear after the summer. The statue was designed by Florentijn Hofman, after conversations with neighbourhood youth. The bear is sturdy, but the pillow also gives it a cosy quality, the artist says.

Hofman was asked to design a statue in collaboration with neighbourhood youth that will be a landmark for the new Staalmanpark. “I’m not necessarily into social cohesion, but when there’s an opportunity to develop a work of art in collaboration with the neighbourhood, then I’ll grab that opportunity with both hands. It’s important to do so when you put something in the public space.”

Shopping critic taken in by king of gossip

21 July, 2010 - 08:28 |
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In real life, Reverend Billy is a charismatic critic of consumerism and leader of the Church of Stop Shopping in New York. A musical about his life will open on 29 July at the Carré in Amsterdam. VN magazine found out that the Reverend has little idea that Henk van der Meyden, who produces the musical, is the nestor of gossip journalism in the Netherlands. Van der Meyden is turning the Reverend’s activism into ‘the feel good show of the year’. Visitors, who will receive a goody bag containing products of Keune Haircosmetics, Ici Paris XL, Segafredo and Grazia, are more likely to identify with the shopaholic ladies than with the critical Reverend, says the leading actor.

Director Goldstein of Stedelijk Museum ‘invisible’

4 July, 2010 - 20:45 |
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The Stedelijk Museum plays no role whatsoever in the debate on contemporary art. After half a year of silence, new director Ann Goldstein must speak out, Sandra Smallenburg said in NRC Handelsblad. On the next day, Loes de Fauwe said in Het Parool that Goldstein is invisible (without mentioning NRC Handelsblad, incidentally). This turns out to be a deliberate strategy: Goldstein won’t go public until 28 August, when the museum partially reopens. She does meet with many people in the art world, who according to Het Parool have a high regard of her.

Photo: Brian Forrest

‘Amsterdam is full of art’

4 June, 2010 - 22:18 |
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“Amsterdam is full of art”, asserts designer Koos van den Berg. He created a map guiding cyclists along 300 of the estimated 1,000+ works of art in the city’s public space. The map will be presented next Thursday.

Van den Berg, who has designed a series of bicycle maps and who produces drag queen cabaret as a hobby, says the real challenge consisted in ‘tying it all together into a route that is easy to navigate on bicycle’.

Tribute to Paradiso heritage

4 June, 2010 - 10:00 |
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Berit Soolsma and Marije van Veen intend to create a website dedicated to the history of the Paradiso, the former church that was squatted by hippies in the 1960s and became the most famous rock venue of the Netherlands. This week, their idea won an award from art institute Mediamatic and the Doen Foundation.

The Paradiso is a lieu de mémoire for Dutch society, Soolsma and Van Veen wrote in a paper for their bachelor graduation at the Reinwardt Academy in Amsterdam. In their paper, they explore ways to present the Paradiso heritage. In an email, Berit Soolsma explains the project.

Amsterdam ‘the world’s sillybilly’

19 May, 2010 - 15:19 |
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Bureaucratic mania is turning Amsterdam into the world’s sillybilly, warns director Wim Pijbes of the Rijksmuseum. Not only will he have to tolerate bicycles in front of his museum, his colleague of the Anne Frank Museum has to put up with a committee against its waiting lines. But does such a committee actually exist? News from Amsterdam investigates.

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