April 16, 2021

Dutch palace salon restored and modernised

Filed under: Art,Science by Orangemaster @ 12:58 pm

Dutch King Willem Alexander and his family live in the royal palace Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, and greeting guests is often done in the DNA Salon. Dutch-British artist Jacob van der Beugel built the salon with part of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima’s genetic code, turned into 60.000 handmade bricks.

Nothing medical is included in the design, as Van der Beugel was assisted by geneticist Hans Clevers to make sure the King’s and Queen’s privacy was protected. It took the artist almost three years to make all of the little bricks and a few weeks to install them. The flatness and horizontal lines evoke Dutch landscapes, like tulips fields.

The combination of traditional and visual Dutch design is, well, very Dutch. Another great example is the unique designs of the Dutch guilder by Ootje Oxenaar who pushed for and designed bank notes from 1966 and 1985.

DNA salon has a nice mix of subtle royal gold, bright white (or creme, hard to see) for contrast, warm DNA information and the contrast of the green chairs, which would explain why the salon was also called the Green Salon. Someone else can tell you more about the chandelier, the furniture and the elaborate ‘overdoor’ (art meant to go above a door).

(Link: nos.nl, Photo rijksvastgoedbedrijf.nl)

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February 24, 2021

Van Gogh painting shown for the first time

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 4:44 pm

A never before shown work by Vincent van Gogh will be auctioned off on 25 March in Paris by Sotheby’s and Mirabaud Mercier, and is expected to fetch between 5 and 8 million euro. The owner wishes to remain anonymous.

Entitled ‘Scène de Rue à  Montmartre’ (‘A street scene in Montmartre’) painted by Van Gogh in 1887 while he was visiting his brother Theo in Paris, the painting stayed for about a century in a French family’ private collection. It depicts a man and woman strolling arm in arm past children playing, with a fence and a windmill in the background.

Auctioneers say that the painting had been seen in catalogues, but had never been on public display. It is one of the very few paintings from Van Gogh’s Montmartre period that was in private hands.

If you want to see the painting and you live in The Netherlands, you would need to make an appointment with Sotheby’s in Amsterdam on 1, 2 and 3 March because after that the painting is off to London and Paris.

(Links: nu.nl, Image: swissinfo.ch)

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January 24, 2021

Film about ‘homesick’ stone brought back to Finland

Filed under: Art,History,Weird by Orangemaster @ 4:42 pm

I recently asked a friend who is big on documentaries if they had any viewing suggestions, and I was told I should watch the 2019 Dutch documentary ‘Bart en de steen die terug naar huis ging’ (‘Bart and the stone that went back home’). It’s the story of artist Bart Eysink Smeets who took a dolmen stone from Borger, Drenthe back to its original home on the Åland Islands, a unique part of Finland where Swedish is the main language.

Filmed by Bart’s brother Tom, we get to watch Bart’s process in finding the right stone in Borger, Drenthe, the Dutch city with the most dolmens. The film is a combination of bureaucracy, up and downs, weirdness, and humour. The way to Åland is a fun road trip as well and you might get attached to the stone while you watch.

As I want to keep this spoiler-free, watch it if you can understand enough Dutch and/or with Dutch subtitles. There’s some English, Drents (dialect) and Swedish as well.

(Link: nrc.nl, image: still from the film)

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January 20, 2021

Delft puts artist’s work in the bin by mistake

Filed under: Art,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:19 am

Chess table

Delft artist Tijn Noordenbos produces art for public spaces, and admits he’s used to some of his artworks disappearing. However, the city of Delft trashing his socially-distanced chess table and chairs came as a bit of a surprise.

Around New Year’s Eve, the city of Delft, South Holland picked up the artwork, looking for stuff they could burn. The idea was to get rid of anything that could be set on fire before New Year’s Eve, owing to the fact that fireworks had been banned and people would set (and did set) other stuff on fire.

Noordenbos is not upset, and is already working on a giant Scrabble board, with letters that will be 60 x 60 cm. He hasn’t asked the city permission, which is why his artworks sometimes disappear. It’s part of the game.

And he’s never been fined for leaving his art lying around. His two dolls in the city centre’s Binnenwatersloot have been there for two years, illegally, and have not been removed.

You win some, you lose some.

(Link and photo: omroepwest.nl)

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November 24, 2020

Dutch artist Streetart Frankey unveils huge car pick

Filed under: Art,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 1:23 pm

You know those ‘paper picks’ you might have seen in real life at a dinner or in a movie featuring a dinner where after the bill was paid, an employee would put it on a paper pick?

This new outdoor piece by Streetart Frankey does the same, but with cars, a nod to when there were more cars than green space at the art installation’s location. The artwork can be admired on the corner of Hondsrugweg and Hettenheuvelweg in Amsterdam Zuidoost, the city’s only exclave. Amusingly enough, I saw it this morning from a bus, but was not quick enough to snap it.

The general area features many large businesses like the big Swedish furniture warehouse and the Johan Cruijff Arena. Soon the are will have a park, surrounded by 5,000 new homes, which are sorely needed in Amsterdam.

The cars are what the Dutch call ‘old timers’, which means cars that are at least 25 years old in this case DAF cars, a Dutch brand.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

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November 20, 2020

Dutch TV show scores work by Adriaan de Lelie

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 12:42 pm

The Dutch version of British television show ‘Antiques Roadshow’ called ‘Tussen Kunst en Kitsch’ (‘Between Art and Kitsch’) – apparently unscripted as compared to its British counterpart – has uncovered a gem by eighteenth century Dutch painter Adriaan de Lelie valued at 100,000 euro (not the image shown here).

The painting in question depicts Dutch painter Charles Rochussen as a baby. De Lelie mostly painted portraits of contemporaries in Dutch cultural life and many interior scenes, which this painting supports. Expert Willem Jan Hoogsteder is convinced that this portrait is the work of De Lelie.

Although the TV show’s record dates back to 2011 for the most expensive painting (250,000 euro for a painting by Joost van Geel in 2011), the De Lelie painting valued at 100,000 euro shares fifth place with a work by Jan van Kessel de Jonge for the same amount.

In 2015 the show uncovered a Karel Appel sculpture.

(Link: nu.nl, Image in the public domain Photo of Portrait of Jan Nieuwenhuyzen, a Dutch Mennonite teacher and minister, who in 1784 founded the Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen)

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November 16, 2020

World premiere: Bob Ross exhibition in The Netherlands

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 3:31 pm

Last weekend Marketing and Communication Specialist Ellen van Slagmaat of Museum MORE and Mauritshuis Restorator Abbie Vandivere were both on Dutch radio show ‘Spijkers met Koppen’ to talk about the very first solo exhibition of American painter and television personality Bob Ross.

Bob Ross was famous for his television show ‘The Joy of Painting’ that showed millions of people in the United States and Canada how easy it was to paint, and did so with one of the most soothing voices on public television. Not only did he paint very quickly, but for each show, he made three or four of the same landscape paintings, Vandivere explained on the radio. Ross had 381 episodes of his show, so that’s a whole lot of paintings of ‘happy little clouds’ and ‘almighty mountains’.

Although parodied and admired for decades, he is now being taken more seriously and being appreciated much more, which is why Van Slagmaat worked hard to set up the exhibition, the world’s first ever solo exhibition of Ross’ works. The exhibition will open in the spring of 2021.

Here’s an episode of Bob Ross painting some Northern Lights:

(Link: hartvannederland, Photo of Bob Ross at his easel, some rights reserved)

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October 28, 2020

Dutch student finds artwork by cubist André Lhote

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 10:23 am

A 22-year-old Dutch art student named Bob spotted a work by French cubist André Lhote on Dutch second-hand site Marktplaats. Bob figured the painting could be worth a lot, so he bought it from a family in Bloemendaal, a rather posh coastal city in the province of North Holland.

Bob then went to Paris to have the painting examined by the world’s André Lhote expert, Dominique Bermann Martin of the André Lhote Association who collects the artist’s works. Her evaluation of the painting was swift, as it was the real deal, estimated to be worth tens of thousands of euro.

The family who sold it didn’t know what the painting was worth, and according to other articles, Bob said that they couldn’t be bothered to find out. As Bob put it, they could have gone to Paris themselves to have the painting examined.

(Link and photo: rtlnieuws.nl)

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August 21, 2020

Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium removes misinterpreted statue

Filed under: Art,History,Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:06 am

Much in the same way that the swastika went from being a religious symbol to being a Nazi one, the official olympic salute with extended arm stopped being used after WWII because it resembled the ‘Hitler greeting’.

That being said, the statue by The Hague sculptor Gra Hueb at Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium was inaugurated in 1928 for the Olympic Games in Amsterdam and had nothing to do with the Nazis. It was placed in honour of Baron Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, the first chairman of the Dutch Olympic Committee who successfully brought the Games to the Netherlands. The stadium is not too far from 24 Oranges HQ and is still in use.

As a sign of the times – for better or worse – historians and the Olympic Stadium folks decided to remove it and place it somewhere else in the stadium instead of prominently at the entrance.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

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May 4, 2020

Wartime art: one hundred chairs for one hundred victims

Filed under: Art,History by Orangemaster @ 5:44 pm

At the end of WWII, 140 men were shot by the German occupiers at Rozenoord in Amsterdam South district, many of which were resistance fighters. The history of Rozenoord is particularly painful since the men were shot so close the liberation.

Located in the Amstelpark in Amsterdam South district, the Rozenoord monument saw the light of day thanks to an initiative of local residents. Artist Ram Katzir designed the new monument to give all the victims a worthy memorial place. Instead of one monument for 100 people Katzir gave every person their own monument.

Anchored in cement with names on plaques, one hundred chairs are spread out over a green space as if they were barely sat in and positioned randomly. However, the chairs were actually placed according to information about the way the victims were shot. There’s also plaques for those who could not be identified.

The space between the chairs invites visitors to walk around and see who these people were. They can also be sat on, as the piece is meant to be interactive. By sitting down, one can see the other ‘victims’ around them, turning the visitors into participants.

(Link and photo: monument-rozenoord.nl)

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