Category: Cultural Travel

100 sexless Artists – Would You believe Italians to be as Puritan as Americans?

It’s a pity for the English language readers that Gotz Primke of Le Gourmand writes in German only: He really offers good content and inspired me for this topic:

Charlier's penis of Christo, which comes with clue "Wraps in very special things".

Belgian artist Jacques Charlier has put together a veritable gallery of portraits based on conceptual analysis and personal interpretation of the “artistic attributes” of major representatives of modern and contemporary art, thus enabling, among other things, a humorous and satirical re-reading of recent art history. He had submitted 100 posters “100 sexes d’artistes” containing 100 more or less sexually tainted parodies of those 100 Artists for the 2009 Venice Biennial. His idea was to offer a clue and let the public guess who he was referring to. This photo points to Christo who wraps everything. However, both the curators and the mayor of Venice refused the posters as they feared the artists involved would be offended. Jacques interviewed all artists but one. They all reported to feel no offense.

Jacques protests with a site against this censorship and with an official vernissage (or is it venissage in this case?). See the above video.

The Brussels Museum of Modern Art backs his protest with an exhibition until September 13, 2009.

Now I wouldn’t have thought Italians to be as puritan as Americans. Would You?

This brings back memories of another protest at a Venice Biennial the one of 2005:

2005-september-Art-en-Route-in-Venice-IMG_0519

That of the Guerilla Girls against the “male chauvinist pigs” still ruling the Venice Biennial…L’Histoire se repete… Lol: yesterday it was 500 years ago that John Calvin was born…a sign of Calvinism in Venice maybe?

2009 The Hague Sculpture – Read My Lips

2009 The Hague Sculpture _MG_0007

On Tuesday June 9, 2009 I was present at the official opening of the 2009 The Hague Sculpture exposition by the Prime Minister of The Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende.
First there was a opening session in one of the oldest churches of The Hague, The “Kloosterkerk” (or church of the convent). The CEO of The Hague Sculpture , The Mexican Ambassador in The Hague, a trustee of The Hague Sculpture and some other persons held speeches. The Prime Minister got the first brochure of the exposition. Thereafter the company moved outside where the sculptures of Javier Marin were installed, for the official opening ceremony.

There the company stopped at the sculpture from which I took the above photo on beforehand. In a sequence of my photo’s there was an exchange between the CEO and Xavier Marin. I have made a small “video” of this exchange, because there are too many photo’s to present them all here on the blog. Look for yourself:

Picasa Video
I’m not so much a video person. It takes far too much time for me. But this little video (without sound) I could produce reasonably quick with Picasa 3, the free Google photo (management) program. Picasa is also very good for organizing many photo’s…I have approximately 20,000 and counting on my computer, deep sigh.

The Ceremony
Then there was the opening ceremony itself: The freeing of a bundle of balloons that, of course, partially got hung in the branches of the trees over the sculptures. How dumb!

20090609 The Hague Sculpture Official Opening _MG_0153

Storytlr
I have experimented in telling this little story via Twitter by uploading some of the pictures to Twitpic and then putting them together in Storytlr: [ Update: Originally there was a working link here, but unfortunately the Storytlr service has discontinued since March, 2010]

Storytlr-The-Hague-Sculpture-Opening---Read-My-Lips

Unfortunately the thumbnails of Storytlr are a bit too unsharpened to make it a nice looking story. I don’t have a mobile telephone with a camera ( I prefer better quality photo’s of ordinary cameras, but it won’t be long and then the mobiles can compete with ordinary cameras), but it is clear to me that Storytlr is a nice app to spread a life stream story.

More photos of the exhibition on Flickr
If you are interested in more photos of The Hague Sculpture, I refer you to my Flickr Sets 2009 The Hague Sculpture and 2009 The Hague Sculpture – Official Opening on June 9, 2009

PS In the meantime I succeeded to upgrade the Worpress Version of this Blog to WP 2.8, which was a hell of a job, as I tried to cut corners.

Last edited by GJE on March 21, 2010 at 2:31 pm

2009 The Hague Sculpture – Mexican Javier Marin’s solo Exhibition

javier-marin

In a couple of days “2009 The Hague Sculpture”, an open air sculpture exhibition, will open. The exhibition will run from June 9, 2009 till September 9, 2009. This year the steering committee has deemed it fit to have a one sculptor exposition rather than a multi sculptor exposition. The sculptor chosen is Javier Marin. His work is more than life size and will work excellent between the green of the trees of the location, the recently refurbished Lange Voorhout. Yesterday and today some impressive sculptures have been put on their places already. Time for me to stroll (or bike) along the site with my camera(s). I believe the exposition itself will be worth a visit to The Hague!

javier-marin-head

About Javier Marín
Javier Marín was born in Uruapan, in the region of Michoacán in Mexico in 1962. He graduated from the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City – the city where he now works and lives.

His original focus was on painting and graphics, but he later concentrated on working in terracotta, resin and bronze.

From 1983 on, he took part in a group exhibition in the Casa de la Cultura in Morelia (Mexico). In 1986 he had his first solo exposition in Mexico City. Since that time, his work has been displayed in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris, at the 50th Venice Biennial in 2005, on the Plaza de Cibeles in Madrid, on the Piazza del Duomo in Pietrasanta, and currently in the Rotonda di via Besana and on the square in front of the Scala in Milan.

More to follow

Art Amsterdam 2009, 13 may until 17 may 2009 in the Amsterdam RAI.


All the galleries at Art Amsterdam will be staging a solo exhibition. This means that 120 artists will have solo exhibitions devoted to their work, which is unique at a contemporary art event. This is how Art Amsterdam will celebrate its 25th anniversary in the period from Wednesday May13, 2009 – Sunday May 17 2009. 120 galleries will display the latest developments in contemporary art at Art Amsterdam 2009, with paintings, photos, sculptures, installations and videos. The participating galleries include all the top-flight Dutch galleries, plus 31 foreign galleries from Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Denmark, Austria, South Africa, Japan and Korea.

Art Amsterdam 2009, 13 may until 17 may 2009 in the Amsterdam RAI.

Travel (or Cruise) to Knit

I admit I’m a bit influenced by my Dear Quilting Wife, but I keep repeating my only prediction for 2009 and beyond: The Future is: Back to Knitting.

Now I can connect knitting with travel, since I found the Blog Textile Travel: They advocate Travel to Knit!

First I thought “How on earth can textile be an excuse for traveling?” Stupid thought, I concluded, when I remembered that DW used to organize bus tours to various Quilt Exhibitions across Europe successfully for a couple of years, and that I even traveled with her to one in Barcelona, which was actually my first and only visit of Barcelona.

Via Textile Travel I found out in August 2009 there is a cruise scheduled in the Mediterranean by the Holland America Line (Yes originally a Dutch firm, presently with its seat in the Dutch Antilles) for yarn aficionados like knitters and crocheters. Here is the Travel plan and Registration From. So they also Cruise to Knit!

From there to the site of one of the Cruise Guides Knot Just Knitting by Prudence Mapstone who has an amazing creativity and who Travels by Knitting if you look at her Workshops and Tours for 2009….

But you can also reverse the caption in Knit to travel. If you consider how much the tiny pieces of textile they call a bikini cost you as opposed when you knit or crochet it yourself:-)

Prudence could also inspire you to knit and to travel and leave your knitting as an enrichment of the landscape:

dimitri_medium
Photo by Christl Rijkeboer

Another fiber artist, but now a Dutch lady who is intrigued by Human Hair, Christl Rijkeboer, could inspire you to keep yourself warm when traveling with this bivouac.

Hah and in between I found a Down Under Guerrilla Knittin Lady Blog: Grrl + Dog Lol.