The fine artiste Aquil Copier, friend and cherished ex-Weekly collegue, has just started a pamphlet about painting: PRESENTeert.
Track down a copy (he’ll even send you one…) and check it out.
I interviewed the artist Pieter Paul Pothoven who has just returned from the caves of Afghanistan where he visited the mines supplying the Lapis Lazuli that formed the basis for Vermeer’s blue. What a story! And a story I will probably post here once the hard copies run out…
Animation fans should definitely check out the Klik Amsterdam film festival that is taking place 17-20 September. One of the organisers Luuk van Huet was a writer for Amsterdam Weekly, and as such I sometimes had to work to calm his smartass tendencies (my older friends will recognise the absurdity of such a situation). It’s the festival’s third edition and is screaming with ambition. A related exhibition, Animation Chiellerie, has already opened with prints and animations by the inspired locals likes of Erik Kriek, Lamelos, Martin Draax and Jeroen Blankert…
But meanwhile…
Bio:
After years of travel subsidised by carpentry and B-movie acting, writer Steve Korver came to Amsterdam in 1991 to reverse the journey his parents made as immigrants to Canada. Soon he was a columnist, copywriter, editor/writer of guide books, and contributor to the likes of New York Times, Guardian, Time Out, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Condé Nast Traveller and The Globe & Mail on such subjects as food/drink, design/architecture, Yuri Gagarin, Serbian gangster kitsch and all-things-Amsterdam. He finally got his first real job in 2005 as editor-in-chief of the cultural paper Amsterdam Weekly. But after 175 issues and 14 European Newspaper Awards, it was time to return to his freewheeling and freelancing writing roots. OK, but first maybe a vacation is a good idea…
Recent samples:
The New York Times magazine feature ‘Holland Days’.
The Guardian article ‘Streets Ahead’.
