Category: The Hague

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

Elzenduin, a Perfect Restaurant near The Hague, brings new fame to Ter Heijde

battle-of-scheveningen-slag-bij-ter-heijdejan-abrahamsz

Recently my wife and I had dinner at restaurant Elzenduin in Ter Heijde. Elzenduin is a 27 room hotel with a restaurant, a beach pavilion and a beach terrace. We had heard and seen good reviews of the restaurant, its brasserie and its beach pavilion. Recently it had undergone a total renovation and its beach terrace won the 2009 Dutch terrace award.

Ter Heijde is a very small township in the dunes of the Dutch North Sea coast half way the 30 km between The Hague (actually Scheveningen, the beach resort of The Hague) and Hoek van Holland or “Hook” as the Brits who visit The Netherlands via ferry use to call it. Ter Heide is part of the village Monster and the municipality Westland.

On July 31, 1653 (according to the Julian calender in use in England) or August 10, 1653 (according to the Gregorian calender in use in the Dutch Republic of Seven United Provinces) Ter Heijde became (in)famous because of the Battle of Ter Heijde (also named the Battle of Scheveningen) during the first Anglo – Dutch war. Eventually there were four Anglo-Dutch wars. Dutch Admiral Maarten Harpertz Tromp leading the Dutch fleet of about 104 man of war on board of the Brederode was defeated by George Monck leading an English fleet of 105 on board of the Resolution. You can see them engaged in the middle of the painting of the battle by Jan Abrahamsz between 1653 and 1666. Not long before Tromp had twice engaged with a fleet under Admiral Blake, the “Father of the Royal Navy” in the Battle of Goodwin Sands (or Battle of Dover) and the Battle of Dungeness where he had defeated Blake. Tromp died during the battle of Ter Heide by a bullet from a sniper on board of the ship of William Penn, the father of the William Penn who founded Pennsylvania. Actually I am a bit disappointed Elzenduin doesn’t elaborate a bit more about these historic events than in the one sentence their site devotes to the battle….

Most details are from Wikipedia and some details and the photo of the painting of the battle are from the blog History of the Sailing Warships in the Maritime Art

Back to dinner at Elzenduin: This is a picture from its window. It is located at the path between Ter Heijde and the Beach. So you look a bit up at the dunes and can see the sun setting behind the dunes.

This was our starter. A painting in itself.

And this was the well sculptured and fine tasting desert we had. I predict that the chef will acquire his first Michelin star very soon.

Update 2014

Only a very short time has this high standard been maintained by the restaurant. Currently it is middle of the road again.

Happy 2009! – Oliebollen and New Year’s Concert


Happy New Year!
On another forum an insatiable curious lady asked me yesterday: “What will you be doing ?” and that is a good item for my first post of 2009.

We looked after some guests. We had some typical Dutch Oliebollen. Oliebollen are sweet dumplings. They taste a bit like donuts. Ours were filed with some raisins as you can see them stick out from them on my photo. In addition we sipped some – better than Champagne – sparkling wine (Creme d’Alsace and Creme de Burgundy).

As usual my DW (Dear Wife) and I were a bit floored and watched, also a Dutch tradition, two Dutch stand up comedians commenting the year 2008. We laughed a bit. We are always a bit subdued in remembrance of my mother in law who passed away January 2, 2003. Ever since we aren’t in the mood to party excessively into a New Year anymore.

Thereafter we watched the London life coverage on BBC with the countdown and magnificent fireworks at the London Eye and went to bed. BTW the BBC has a nice World Fireworks Compilation Here

Actually I would have liked to be in Vienna, to waltz into the New Year and to visit the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra life.

Today we watched it on TV. It is hardly possible to get tickets. Via e-mail you can enter their lottery as of tomorrow. I tried last year to no avail, but I’ll try again. If you don’t try I’ll have a bigger chance:-)

The conductor of Russian Israely Argentinean ancestry asked for peace in 2009. Especially important in the Mid East now that the Israeli and Hamas are misbehaving again.

The Austrians do a tremendous job with this worldwide concert coverage. In the pause they show beautiful footage of their magnificent country. This year they asked attention for the city of Linz, which, together with Vilnius, is appointed European Cultural City of 2009.

My city The Hague is in the race to become European Cultural City of the Year in a future year. I will report about that separately.

We will forgo the traditional TV coverage of the New Year’s Ski Jumping in German Garmisch Partenkirchen to visit a New Year’s party of friends.

And, tell me, dear readers: What did you do yesterday and today?

"Royally" Fed Up with RandstadRail


RandstadRail. Photo by Dennis Holtkamp

RandstadRail is a light rail initiative to have quick public transport between the two cities The Hague and Rotterdam. The idea is RandstadRail can use both the tram rail and the train rail network. The only problem is that they are much wider and heavier than ordinary trams. A fact that the The Hague Municipality played down heavily when we organized a protest when the City planned to have RandstadRail driving through our very narrow part of the Laan Meerdervoort in The Hague. Then they claimed our protests were mere NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) protests.

My main complaint is that our part of the long Laan Van Meerdervoort is too narrow for Randstadrail.
What happened yesterday evening proved me right again:


RandstadRail crashes two taxis in one

A TV crew was shooting an interview with a foreign Prince in our small luxe hotel, Haagsche Suites, for a BBC series to be broad casted in spring 2009.
After the shooting I had ordered two taxis, one for the Prince and one for the crew. We had just loaded the crew’s gear, cameras, lighting equipment and tripods in the first taxi. We were saying good bye to the party on the sidewalk. All of a sudden we heard two enormous bangs: RandstadRail had crashed into the second taxi with such speed that the second taxi was smacked at least 5 meter further against taxi number one.


The poor driver of the second taxi in dire need of a replacement car.

I am very glad nobody was standing between the two taxis when it happened and luckily there were no personal injuries. This is not the first time this happens in front of our hotel. A couple of weeks ago RandstadRail crashed a car with a whole family inside it….not sure they didn’t have any whiplash injury then.

Now I really can say I am “Royally” Fed up with RandstadRail!

The Hague: 1 City/2 Days/20 Venues/200+ Artists – TodaysArt 2008 (5) Chunky Move

They performed Glow, one of the best dance performances I have ever seen!

About Chunky Move
Founded by Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek in 1995, Chunky Move has earned an enviable reputation for producing a distinct yet unpredictable brand of genre-defying dance performance. In the performance Glow, the latest in interactive video technologies is used to generate a digital landscape in real time in response to the dancers’ movements. Beneath the glow of a sophisticated video tracking system, a lone organic being mutates in and out of human form into unfamiliar, sensual and grotesque creature states.

Look at this video for an impression of Glow: