Art & Culture

The Amsterdam Historic Museum (AHM) has posted photos and descriptions of some 70,000 of its objects online. The material can be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons license. The objects range from 17th Century paintings to a wheel clamp and from weaponry to a model of the western extension of Amsterdam (Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan).

[By Jan Ligthart] – In 1963, a cinema was finished at Tussenmeer 2 in Osdorp, opposite the Dirk van de Broek supermarket: box-shaped, flat-roofed, with a narrow brick building at the rear serving as stage tower, looking like an open lid. Therefore, this movie theatre is named the Shoe Box.

They never managed to find anyone to run the theatre. No movie has ever been shown there. Out of necessity, it was renovated to accommodate shops, with office space at the first floor of the stage tower. Now the block has been demolished and replaced with new buildings including: Tussenmeer 2: Telecom; 4: Dirck III off-license; and 6: Zeeman clothes chain.

Under the name ‘Not Normal’, an exhibition on what is normal and who decides has opened at the Beurs van Berlage. “Not normal is in any case the amount of sponsoring and subsidy,” art blog Trendbeheer dryly notes.

To illustrate, the blog alternates a series of photos of the exhibition with politically correct statements by sponsors. “It appeals to the VSBfonds because it introduces a broad public to a debate on representation and ‘being different’. The VSBfonds thinks diversity enriches society,” one of them says.

Insurance company Achmea thinks the exhibition fits well with its own ‘what do we think we’re up to’ campaign.

An exhibition on Soviet photographer and designer Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) will open next week at Foam. Inspired by German Dadaists, visual artist Rodchenko started experimenting with photography and photomontage in the 1920s. In addition, he designed posters and magazines.

When party guidelines changed in the 1930s, he focussed on photographing sports events and parades.

This spring, neighbourhood photographer Louis Hofman discovered a street sign saying ‘Stalinlaan’ (Stalin Avenue) at the Vrijheidslaan. “Restalinisation in the Rivierenbuurt? A forgotten piece of scenery in a movie set between 1953 and 1956? Or just a joke from a confirmed old-fashioned follower of Soviet Communism?” – weblog Rivierenbuurt wondered.

After the Second World War, Stalin got his own street in the Rivierenbuurt, just like Churchill and Roosevelt. In 1956, after the Soviets had invaded Hungary, the Stalinlaan was renamed Vrijheidslaan (Freedom Avenue).