Museum night is coming up on Saturday 7 November, this year’s programme – and website – has got a glossier feel than I’ve seen in previous years.
They’ve also created a video competition with one minute videos to highlight Museum Night. Here’s my favourite entry.
The site has rather limited info in English but it’s easy enough to navigate and they have a system where you can create your own programme for the evening.
Step 1; register your account
click on “Mijn n8″ at the upper right, you’ll be asked for name (voornaam), surname (achternaam), email and password.
Step 2; click on “Programma”
Step 3; select all the events you want to attend
Step 4; Go back to “Mijn n8″ to see the programme you’ve compiled and print it out.
You can still buy tickets either at the Ticketshop on Leidseplein.
This was leaning against my doorstep this evening. It’s the latest telephone directory plus yellow pages.
Why?
Not “why was it against the door?” but “why are they even producing these things anymore?”
There’s a website that does the same thing, and a directory service I can call on my mobile phone if I don’t have access to internet for some reason. Plus I tend to call friends on their mobile numbers – which I already have saved in my phone.
Who uses these? I don’t, and I resent being made responsible for disposing of it. I’ve just emailed them to ask if I can return it.
Yesterday was Prinsjesdag, it falls on the third Tuesday in September and it’s the day on which the Queen addresses the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the budget is presented. Most years it’s not a particularly interesting day, the Dutch economy is relatively strong and stable (well apart from the crisis).
But this year there’s been a lot of discussion about the budget. Most of the Dutch papers this morning were apparently very scathing in their opinions.
The outlook is grim, we’re in a global crisis, but specifically for the Netherlands the outlook includes;
state debt to reach 65.7% of GDP in 2010
budget deficit to reach 4.8% of GDP in 2009, 6.2% in 2010
no economic growth next year
unemployment to hit 8% end of 2010 (NL has a high rate of long term illness which masks some unemployment, that means the real rate of unemployment is probably 3 percentage points higher)
spending power to go down by an average of 0.25%
The Budget measures announced are fairly undramatic and rather ho-hum, the cuts include;
Aid budget cut by €600M to €4.6bn, still 0.8%GDP
Child benefit and student grants frozen
€75M less for workforce reintegration
Changes on the spending side include;
€220M in extra tax breaks for innovation
€1bn extra or part-time jobless benefits
€150M extra for urban renewal
€416M extra to combat youth unemployment
€300M extra for waterways and coastal protection
300 “family and child” centres to open nationwide by end-2010
In the miscellaneous pile, new mobile frequencies will be auctioned and the 60W lightbulb will be phased out.
The measures announced don’t sound like they’re in response to a crisis – they sound very much business as usual. Wouter Bos, Minister of Finance, has said that the government will need to cut spending in 2011, he says that by delaying cutbacks for a year the government hopes to establish a ‘broad social and political debate’ next year on how to proceed.
Hmm, that sounds a lot like “we don’t know what to do, give us a year and we’ll think of something”. There’s strong element of consensus-driven decision making in Dutch culture and indeed in the political system. Most of the time I like it, and although decision making can be slower, action post decision is usually quick.
However in a crisis it’s not the right way to work. Doctors working A&E don’t spend a lot of time discussing each patient’s case and getting the Nurses agreement on what to do. The Doctors make decisions and tell others what will be done.
I agree with the Council of State, the government’s highest advisory body, who said that “the cabinet’s decision to spend another six months looking into areas where cuts can be made does not reflect the urgency of the situation.”
There are two villages in the south of the Netherlands that claim to be the first villages liberated in 1944, Mesch and Noorbeek. The people of the villages can’t agree, both villages have monuments commemorating being first, and apparently the historians can’t decide either. There’s more in the NRC.
There’s a new outdoor exhibition around Amsterdam, a series of painted elephants.
The elephants are part of a fund-raising effort. They’ll be auctioned off at the Westergasfabriek on 12 November and the money will go to supporting Elephants in Asia.
Obamaphant
I’ve spotted elephants throughout the city – from the Central Station to Cornelius Schuystraat.You can find the route of all the elephants online, and find your own favourites on a walk through the city.
Australian Elephant
There were lots of people photographing and climbing on the elephants all around Museumplein and Spui where these photos were taken.
I’ve posted a few of my favourites – you can also buy some examples of the elephants either at shops on Museumplein or in Kalvertoren, or online.
This blue and white one is my favourite so far; don’t think I’ll be bidding on him though; too expensive and doesn’t really go with the decor.
These wasps are about the size of a pig, and the fruit is about the height of a human – it’s part of the sculpture route set up along Apollolaan and Minervalaan from 16 August to 26 October. (Take tram 5 or 24 and get off at Apollolaan – where you’ll see these wasps)
I took these images today of some of the sculptures.
Rotting Fruit and Wasps by Florentijn Hofman,At first sight Amsterdam Zuid looks like a quiet, shadowy part of Amsterdam. And still danger is lurking around the corner. As long as you’re hidden behind the high fences in the cool air-conditioned bunker nothing can happen to you. Once on the sidewalk or lawn you’ll imagine yourself in a jungle where wasps as big as pigs and angles as big as machetes have it in for you. Will you be their feast meal or will they prefer the rotting fruit?” is the question for Hofman
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Bikini Bar by Joep van Lieshout
A meeting point for elderly people: beautiful, cruel and sensual, with a nice interior space. Both art and architecture, BikiniBar represents a building as a sculpture and a sculpture as a building. There is a place to rest inside, where people can withdraw from the busy beach life or bad weather. BikiniBar is the only female body you can enter without permission.
I found this sculpture disconcerting – a dismembered woman’s body, with a door in one leg so that people can enter? It screams misogyny. Having looked at the artist’s website I think I’m meant to be disconcerted – I guess that makes it more “art”, but I still don’t like it.
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Translucide – Antoine Poncet
“The movement is essential in my quest. Everything is moving in nature, in life. Qe must go all the way, faith in search of balance. Maintaining this balance is essential for the sculpture, when you press too hard with your palm everything could fall. Although it is difficult to shape the material in the last phase to perfect satisfaction, this very complex exercise is at the same time the challenge I find my passion for sculpture in. To be able to make a sculpture, you need to bring the material to life, underastand and love it” Antoine Poncet.
This is the piece I could most live with of all the exhibits, but, although it’s one of the smaller pieces on display it’d still dwarf my tiny terrace.
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Wachter 1 by Shinkichi Tajiri
After the war Tajiri left America to study with Ossip Zadkine in Paris. There he makes his first series of warriors. Tajiri “All my Warriors and Ronin are three dimensional icons remainders of certain war experiences which have left me with psychological scars. On inspecting the sculpture parts of the torso easily prove to be a suggestion. What we can make out are just fragments of feet, legs, arms, torsos and heads. “Since time immemorial a defensive sentinel day and night, vigilance and power to resist they protect communities against dangers. In their tightly compacted militant force exists a positive mental drive” says Tajiri.
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The Thinker (Le Penseur) by Auguste Rodin
Le Penseur shows a man in sober meditation struggling with a powerful internal issue. The work shows Dante sitting at the gates of Hell, pondering over a poem on the hellish fate of those under him. The sculpture creates a philosophical mood. Rodin chose a heroic nude figure, in the tradition of Michelangelo. More than any other sculpture by Rodin Le Penseur was an instantly recognisable icon for intellect and poetry.
I’m sure all of that was true when it was built, but it’s become too iconic to hold much in the way of a philosophical mood now.
Or at least that’s how it appeared to me at the time. I was eating at ctaste, a restaurant experience where you eat entirely in the dark. By dark I don’t mean the lights are turned off I mean that there is a profound absence of light. You literally cannot see your hand in front of your face.
The staff working inside the restaurant rooms are visually impaired, so part of the experience is about understanding a little more about what life without vision might be like. You’re led into the room in a sort of cha cha line directly to your table, if you need to leave the room you can call your waiter/waitress to help you – and you will need the help.
At first it’s very unsettling; for the first ten minutes I was trying to see, trying to find something to focus my eyes on, after that I got used to it. Until my food arrived.
Not only could I not see what was on my plate I couldn’t see my plate! It was a matter of taking a stab in the dark and then guessing what I’d chosen. We had a lot of fun with the guessing part, and on the whole we weren’t too bad. Although one of the guests was convinced there was no salmon involved because she doesn’t like salmon. She was in for a surprise when we were told the menu at the end of the meal. We had to pour our own drinks, just passing the glasses around the table was tricky. Without vision we had to remember where thing were and we had to communicate a lot more about what we were doing.
I noticed I still turned my head towards the voice of whoever was speaking, and I still gestured with my hands to explain things. Really pointless, but somehow hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
The concept aims to heighten your sense of taste, and I definitely paid more attention to the flavour and texture since I couldn’t see the food.
A second part of the concept is to give visitors insight into life as a person with a vision impairment. It does. I know we were only in the dark for a couple of hours but the disorientation and the need to rely on other senses was a new experience. There was also a sense of helplessness – we could not find our table without someone leading us – that would be exhausting.
Even the interaction with the staff took a bit more work, we figured out fairly early that if you keep talking to your waitress it increases the chances of accuracy when she passes you the glasses, even so my dessert was thrust at me somewhere mid-chest. Somewhat surprising.
Would I go again? It’s much more about the experience than the food, and I would take a group there for the experience.
Here’s a short clip – in Dutch – showing something of the Antwerp restaurant to give you an idea of the experience.
The “Grachtenfestival” (canal festival) has started. This festival of concerts and performances along the canals of Amsterdam is a summer highlight.
It culminates in the Prinsengrachtconcert, a free concert on the Prinsengracht, a pontoon is built outside the Pulitzer Hotel for the performers (and honoured guests), the concert starts at about 8pm, but Amsterdammers will park their boats across the canal and seats across along the canal quays from about 4pm. If it’s a nice evening it’s a trully gezellig way to relax with friends.
This year’s concert features the Storioni Trio playing Haydn and Dvorak, followed by soprano Daniele de Niese. If you can’t make it the concert,
the second part is broadcast live on Nederland 2 from 9.30pm.
There are a lot of events this week, during the day as well as in the evening. Some events are free, some are already sold-out! If you want to book tickets you can do so through the Grachtenfestival website.
Step 4; Go back to “Mijn n8″ to see the programme you’ve compiled and print it out.
