Now I have a new thing that makes me feel old: successful musician friends relaunching as painters. Richard Cameron’s portraits are being exhibited at the Chiellerie until 9 September. Check them out. Even though Richard, of Arling & Cameron fame, just started painting a year ago, he’s certainly not just clowning about. In fact, Chiellerie’s Chiel was again proven absolutely correct: after he predicted the rise of ceramics a couple of years ago, Chiel’s now putting all his money on clowns breaking through huge this year.

But I wonder: do clowns ever really go out of style? It’s certainly hard to imagine when looking at Richard’s portrait  of the enigmatic Malle Domoor (above).

Also keep your eyes out for the Unfold special edition covering the mighty Klik Amsterdam animation festival coming up on 15-19 September.

Meanwhile later this month, between 28 and 30 May, another new anti-Art Amsterdam manifestation kicks off as a few of the city’s more interesting local galleries come together to form Minimarket in an old canalhouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A great campaign: ‘Linkse Hobbies’.

A while ago the Dutch populist politician and amateur film-maker Geert Wilders stated: ‘The cabinet must start cutting deeply into all those leftist hobbies that are just wasting billions on the European Union, development aid, subsidies for the environment, art and housing, citizenship courses and all the rest of it. ’

So a group started to wonder what the Netherlands would look like if all these ‘hobbies of the Left’ would disappear… Order your stickers at Linkse Hobby and start marking! And don’t forget to upload a photo! The above picture features the work of inspired artist Serge Verheugen. Don’t disappear Serge! Don’t disappear!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The City Archives have another great exhibition running until June. It features the earliest examples of street photography in Amsterdam. This is a picture of photographer Jacob Olie’s family in front of their house at Zandhoek 10 in the painfully scenic Westerlijke Eilanden. The children and the dog obviously did not have the patience to sit still and are therefore immortalised as ghosts. This street remains pretty much unchanged to this day. But back in the Golden Age days, this was where people came to pick up sand (zand) whenever their property started to sink. It is said that many a riot occurred here during sand shortages. I guess people get panicky whenever their homes threaten to return to the bog from whence it came.  Anyway you can download a tour along the settings of these photographs here.

It turns out that the painting of a windmill Le Blute-fin in Montmartre is a bona fide Van Gogh — one of only five ‘new’ paintings attribruted to the master since 1970. For decades, the painting has been in storage at the Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle. The reason why it took so long to verify this painting is that it once belonged to the collector Dirk Hannema (1895-1984), a man famous for buying De Emmausgangers for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Hannema thought he was dealing with a true Vermeer, but actually it was a true Van Meegeren…

In 1947, Hans van Meegeren died in Amsterdam. He had just been sentenced to a year in jail for forging Vermeer paintings. Under the original charge of collaboration, this sentence would have been death. His downfall began during World War II when the stagnant art market was being revitalised by the German special units commissioned by Göring to buy, trade and/or plunder as many of Europe’s art treasures as possible. After the war when Göring’s prized booty was unearthed in an Austrian salt mine, the Allieds found a Vermeer entitled Christ with the Adulteress. Investigation led to Meegeren, a renowned art dealer. After his arrest, he proved in court that he himself had painted it and should therefore be treated like a hero for scamming Nazi scum. Göring apparently cried the salted tears of a knee-scuffed child when he heard about it while on trial in Nuremberg. This story spread and Hollywood began planning a film version of this remarkable story.

Van Meegeren had actually pulled the same scam many times before the war. Ironically, one of the 200 paintings he received from Göring for Christ with Adulteress was one of his earlier Vermeer forgeries. He also sold another early ‘Vermeer’, De Emmausgangers, to a Rotterdam museum via Dirk Hannema for millions. But it wasn’t just pure artistry that made Van Meegeren rich. When looked at today, the faces he painted look less 17^th Century and more like Valentino and Garbo (since he recruited his models by ripping them out of movie mags). His success seemed to be mostly derived from an obsessive desire for revenge.

Back in the ‘20s, Meegeren’s own original efforts — of cuddly fawns and such — was dissed by many critics, one of whom happened to be the country’s Vermeer authority who had devised a whole theory around the artist’s ‘missing ten years’. So Meegeren chose themes and a style that echoed these speculations. It was bait and then checkmate as the ‘authority’ happily authenticated his ‘proofs’. With money rolling in throughout the ‘30s to feed his alcohol and morphine habit, Meegeren kept this smug secret private while exacting a more public revenge on his other detractors by publishing articles that explained their ‘lack of taste’ in terms of their racial inferiority.

Hollywood continues to struggle with the screenplay.  And now with the proof that Hannema could also recognise a non-fake painting, the story has just got that much more richer…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to the European Cultural Foundation, I interviewed two very inspiring folks: Borka Pavićević (pictured) and Stefan Kaegi. They were the winners of the Routes Award for Cultural Diversity 2009 for their work in theater championing the voices of the “other”.

Borka, in particular, has long been a hero of mine ever since I first visited ex-Yugoslavia. As the founder of Belgrade’s Centre for Cultural Decontamination, she has fought the good fight against a steady stream of nationalists, gangsters and populist pricks. The Centre was one of the first places I went when I felt dirty from sitting behind Mira Markovic, wife of Milosevic, on a flight between Amsterdam and Belgrade in 2001.

I went to the awards ceremony in Brussels a couple of weeks ago and certainly had a couple of culturally diverse moments. It was at the Royal Flemish Theater and when we arrived early, my friend and I went to the next door cafe to kill some time. The waitress refused to talk Dutch with us — which we thought ironic since we were at a Dutch-language theater for an award’s ceremony dedicated to cultural diversity. 

After the ceremony I went over to introduce myself to Borka and she greeted me very warmly thanks to some common friends (ah, I do miss the Balkans sometimes…). She asked me if I had ever met Princess Margriet of the Netherlands. I hadn’t so I shook the princess’s hand. Then Borka wanted to introduce me to  some Belgrade journalist — “you actually probably know him, he’s the one that they tried to blow up with not one but two bombs.” But just as I was about to shake his hand, a plate of oysters came by and the crowd — royalty, journalists, etc — swooped in. It was a moment of true diversity. The oysters were dang tasty as well.

But really, read the interviews:
Borka Pavićević
Stefan Kaegi

Head down to Paradiso this Friday 29 January for the best of Pips:Lab. You can look upon PIPS:lab as a kind of A-Team — where the ‘A’ stands for ‘Art School Dropout’. Actually, they are more like MacGyver — but then with a sense of humour and a taste for Human Growth Hormone. But seriously, PIPS:lab tells a heart warming, and often brain melting, story of what happens when a collective of artists from a variety of disciplines seek to create everything, from software to vocal harmonies, themselves. Combining new media, theatre, music, film and photography — along with tech, chuckles and raw public interaction — PIPS:lab produce everything from theatrical performances to installations. And it’s all done live in your face, right down to the video editing.

For example, their Washing Powder Conspiracy show is a groovy, funny and catchy laundry-themed multimedia theatre concert. And while loose and wacky, the show is still tighter than two people in a washing machine. Everything — from the sing-along tunes and primal screaming right through to the light graffiti artistry and outfits — refers to washing powder. Things that did not quite make sense from earlier in the show are later power edited live to form new backdrops for yet more nonsensical acts of madness. Where else can absurdist speeches about detergents be magically transformed into radical political statements? Meanwhile all the happy chaos is rhythmically backed by a washing machine, three dryers and a sextet of irons. And remember folks, your whites can always get whiter…

Meanwhile, staying in touch with friends and loved ones just gets easier and easier these day. And now it’s even possible to stay in touch with the dead thanks to the internet community DieSpace. Step right up folks! Yes indeed, with laptops, cameras and light sensors, PIPS:lab has created a interactive musical show about post-mortem social networking. And with today’s ongoing ‘grayification’ of society, it’s not such a crazy idea — especially if you believe the onstage marketing manager/show master. Meanwhile… Your mug shot is being projected on the screen since he chosen you, above all others, for a DieSpace Premium Account!

OK, maybe you just got to be there…

A visiting Peter the Great (1672-1725), who was passing through to learn shipbuilding and how to build a city on a bog (which would inspire his pet project St Petersburg) became fascinated with this collection of preserved freaks — not surprising for a seven-foot giant of a man. After kissing the forehead of a preserved baby, Peter paid Ruysch f30 000 for the complete collection and brought it all back to St Petersburg with him.

You can still get a flavour of those heady times by visiting the Waag which once served as Death Central as the place where criminals were executed and later dissected in its Theatrum Anatomicum, a spot immortalized by Rembrandt as the setting for his goriest paintings The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (the guy who had Ruysch’s job before him). You can also check out the painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Frederick Ruysch by Jan van Neck (pictured) at the Amsterdam Historical Museum. And for another impressive collection of dead bits, be sure to visit the frolicsomely named Museum Vrolik that is located in the Amsterdam’s largest hospital and features a bona fide Cyclops in brine.