|
Andrea Alessi
|
|
Amsterdam: September Openings
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
9/4/11
The Fall Art Season in Amsterdam began last weekend with a handful of openings at galleries and art spaces like W139, Fons Welters, and Upstream. Hopefully these openings have whet your arty appetites, for September’s main course draws near. Get your gallery hop on this weekend, when more than twenty galleries reopen their doors after a snoozy summer. With diverse shows citywide, there’s a lot of ground to cover. Fuel yourself with cheese cubes, olives, and (of course!) wine, and check out some... [more]
|
Summer Group Show & Best of Graduates
by Andrea Alessi
Marijn Akkermans, Anna Bjerger, Jodie Carey, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Nik Christensen, Shezad Dawood, Bas Geerts, Noa Giniger, Aisling Hedgecock, Thomas Lerooy, Abner Preis, Eva Räder, Peter Schuyff, Davina Semo, Conrad Shawcross, Anoek Steketee, Coen Vunderink, Douglas White, Masao Yamamoto at Galerie Gabriel Rolt
August 12th, 2011 - September 3rd, 2011
Posted
8/22/11
Current group shows at Jordaan-area galleries Gabriel Rolt and Ron Mandos don’t pretend to be anything other than compilations of artworks that the gallerists enjoy. In the case of the former, this categorization can be extended to “by artists the gallery represents or works with,” in the latter, “by recent art school graduates from around the Netherlands.”
While I normally have little patience for post hoc themed group shows, neither of these galleries puts forth a theme for their exhi... [more]
|
Don’t think too hard. Enjoy art. Outdoors.
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
8/22/11
At last it feels like summer in the Netherlands, and there’s no better time to get outside and visit ArtZuid, Amsterdam’s large-scale public sculpture route now in its final week of installation.
As I remarked about ArtZuid’s 2009 incarnation, the sculpture route puts on display the wide, tree-lined boulevards of this lovely south Amsterdam neighborhood as much as it does some fifty-eight curated sculptures. And this is not a bad thing – the exhibition is better if you try to enjoy the whole ex... [more]
|
5 Artsy Day Trips You Should Make This Summer
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
8/8/11
I warned you last month of the gallery closings to come (not the results of cultural funding cuts, but of the more benign “we’re all going on holiday – see you in September” variety). And now here they are. What’s an art lover to do in August in the Netherlands? Get out of Amsterdam for the day, that’s what. Here are suggestions for five leuke uitstapjes you should make this summer.
1) Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen
Fort Vijfhuizen comprises part of the Defense Line of Amsterdam (now a UNESCO World Heritage... [more]
|
On the Dutch Culture Cuts
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
7/11/11
I feel slightly foolish commenting on the cuts to Dutch cultural spending when so many words have already been written about the topic by people far more qualified or intimately affected than I. But I’d feel even more foolish not mentioning it at all, carrying on as though the people and institutions on which I rely for inspiration, entertainment, knowledge, beauty, and fodder for this editorial position, were not suffering. So for those of you not living in the Netherlands who missed the ad in the New York Times, the e-flux mailin... [more]
|
July 2011 Picks
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
7/11/11
“It’s happening,” my friend remarked the other day, looking out the window onto the empty street outside my house.
“What is?”
“Exodus.”
This is indeed that time of year when Netherlanders depart for warmer climes (as if the 90+ degree temperatures we had last week weren’t quite warm enough), namely Spain and Southern France, though I’ve met travelers headed to Portugal, Italy, even Indonesia and China. An acquaintance of mine lamented, without any hint of irony, that he was going on ho... [more]
|
Rotterdam Summer 2011
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
6/20/11
What local readers doubtless know, but visitors from our ArtSlant sister cities might not, is that the Netherlands is a small and rather efficient place. One could easily spend more time getting from Chelsea to the Upper East Side or from Shoreditch to Kensington than traveling from Amsterdam to Utrecht, Rotterdam, or the Hague. Granted, it’s very flat here and, despite the locals’ complaints, the trains by and large manage to run on time. (Dutch readers, I challenge you to ride public transpor... [more]
|
Lucy Wood: Vicini Lontani/Distant Neighbors
by Andrea Alessi
Lucy Wood at Upstream Gallery
May 14th, 2011 - July 2nd, 2011
Posted
6/6/11
Let me be honest. I visited Lucy Wood’s “Vicini Lontani/Distant Neighbors” at Upstream Gallery with a lot of academic baggage. I’m a visual anthropologist by training and I spent much of my time in grad school arguing for the anthropological usefulness of art. In an apologetic academic landscape where models demanding reflexivity and transparency try to address the “burden of representation”, I argued that artistic methods could add something to the conversation that writing could no... [more]
|
Martijn Hendriks
by Andrea Alessi
Martijn Hendriks at Martin Van Zomeren
May 21st, 2011 - June 25th, 2011
Posted
5/29/11
Sometimes artwork forces us to evaluate our critical surroundings, to seek out a comfortable place for observation. Can we accept that we are being given almost nothing in terms of solid footing, no firm landing but a narrow ledge? And if we shift our balance, accept the arrangement and submit to the unresolved tensions of an artwork, can we end up in a less precarious place - perhaps not on level ground, but somewhere we can pause and take in the view?
In Martin Hendriks’ Almost Nothing and Almost Ev... [more]
|
Mid-May Picks, Amsterdam
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
5/24/11
April might doet wat zij wil, but if last week was any indicator, May seems to be the cruelest month in the Netherlands this year. Cheer yourselves up in this grey, windy weather with some art! There’s plenty to see in the wake of the art fairs, including plenty of interesting solo shows at galleries and art spaces. Plus, group shows seem to have started early this year, so maybe we can even convince ourselves that summer is here!
Opened last weekend (May 21):
Martijn Hendriks’ Almost Nothi... [more]
|
Non-comprehensive Notes on Art Amsterdam
by Andrea Alessi
at Art Amsterdam Art Fair
May 11th, 2011 - May 15th, 2011
Posted
5/16/11
My colleague, Nicola, had the chance to visit Art Amsterdam before I did and sent me an encouraging text message: “Let me know what you think, I unexpectedly enjoyed it! Ciao ciao.” Given this assessment, I approached the fair with an attitude of cautious optimism, and it turns out there was a lot to like about Art Amsterdam 2011. I, too, unexpectedly enjoyed it!
For a more in depth (and perhaps more lucid as well) report on the trends and mood of the fair, visit Nicola’s GeoSlant blog pos... [more]
|
Interview wiyh Alfredo Jaar
by Andrea Alessi
2011-04-30
Amsterdam, Apr. 2011 - At the opening of Alfredo Jaar’s Marx Lounge at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, members of the art community walked gingerly around a large table filled corner-to-corner with books. For the first ten minutes or so no one touched anything. The books seemed so shiny, new, pristine – and they were, after all, art. When a number of young Amsterdam artists waltzed in and unquestioningly began flipping through the titles as they schmoozed, it became clear that lounge visito... [more]
|
Orange Art
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
4/25/11
Hello, Amsterdammers!
It’s that time of year when extra days off are tacked onto the weekends and working hours are cut a bit short in exchange for a little extra time op terrasje. Don’t try to deny it. I know you’ve all foregone work for a beer in the sun at least once in the past two weeks. No one wants to think too hard, so instead of pondering the latest gallery exhibitions or searching for clever insights into, well, anything, let us relax and feast our eyes on some orange. Here for yo... [more]
|
Larry Bamburg: Bamberg (sic.)
by Andrea Alessi
Larry Bamburg at GRIMM (KEIZERSGRACHT)
March 26th, 2011 - May 8th, 2011
Posted
4/4/11
Larry Bamburg might find the idea of discovery and play, coupled with do-it-yourself-determinism, the object of his work, but his exploratory processes leave fascinating evidence of this artistic problem-solving. Visitors to GRIMM Gallery this month are treated to a display that might find itself variously at home in a natural history museum, laboratory, or children’s playroom.
The artifacts, specimens, and toys at GRIMM consist of truncated tree branches, unfeasible assemblages of temperatur... [more]
|
April Highlights
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
3/29/11
Gabriel Lester and Antonia Carrara (Playstation) at Fons Welters. Until May 14.
"Somewhere Place" from Ryan McGinley at Gabriel Rolt. Until May 14.
"It's No Crime To Tickle Me" by David Nuur at Martin van Zomeren. Until May 14.
Andrew Gilbert's "Austerlitz - The Fate of Empires" at Ten Haaf Projects. Until May 21.
Marjolijn van den Assem and Hieke Luik at Gist Galerie. Until May 14.
Last Weekend in Amsterdam:
Jaap van den Ende’s recent paintings at Akinci, plus Theo Jansen University. Both until May 7 (opening April 1... [more]
|
Play Van Abbe
by Andrea Alessi
Ulay / Abramovic, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, James Lee Byars, Sarah Charlesworth, Thierry De Cordier, Robert Delaunay, Braco Dimitrijevic, Barry Flanagan, Hamish Fulton, Douglas Gordon, Jenny Holzer, ANSELM KIEFER, Surasi Kusolwong, Richard Long, Christina Lucas, Klaus Mettig, Piet Mondriaan, Deimantas Narkevičius, Marko Peljhan, Pablo Picasso, Oliver Ressler, David Robilliard, Martha Rosler, Katharina Sieverding, Gerrit van Bakel, Erwin van Doorn, Erwin van Doorn & Inge Nabuurs, Jan Vercruysse, Andy Warhol, Yang Zhenzhong at Van Abbemuseum
February 26th, 2011 - August 20th, 2011
Posted
3/7/11
Something unusual is happening to visitors’ attentions in the Van Abbemuseum’s fourth and final installment of Play Van Abbe, an 18-month exhibition program considering artists and exhibition makers as diverse “players” within the museum. The current exhibition adds further players to the roster, putting the museum-going behaviors of viewers up for scrutiny. There’s no shortage of art that relies on or even exploits the viewer, but here it’s the exhibition using its visitors. The artw... [more]
|
Andrea Alessi Picks for your March Viewing
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
3/1/11
March promises to keep art-watchers busy with plenty of new shows at galleries, artspaces, and museums alike. In addition to new exhibitions, don’t forget ongoing shows from late February – including those at NIMk, Annet Gelink, SMBA, Akinci, Gabriel Rolt, and elsewhere! Here, in order of opening date, are some March suggestions:
The Stedelijk temporarily reopens (yet again) with The Temporary Stedelijk 2, exhibiting the museum’s modern and contemporary art collection in the not-yet-finished building. From March 3rd.
Hui... [more]
|
In the Middle of Things
by Andrea Alessi
Olga Chernysheva at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst
January 23rd, 2011 - March 27th, 2011
Posted
2/7/11
Olga Chernysheva’s In the Middle of Things, an exhibition of paintings, photographs, and films currently at BAK, straddles a fine line between representation – what some might consider documentation – and artistic expression. The work considers not so much a physical as a social reality, one comprising millions of unique subjectivities that together form overlapping social, national, and cultural landscapes. Taking a post-Soviet Russia as her subject, Chernysheva seems to ask: how can we r... [more]
|
February Highlights
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
1/31/11
As January exhibitions ride out their final weeks and Amsterdam prepares for Art Rotterdam, there won’t be a great deal of gallery openings in the first half of February. Nevertheless, here are a few openings to keep you satiated over the next couple weekends.
Grimm Gallery presents “Und daß zu Frühe die Parze den Traum nicht ende”, new works by Gregor Hildebrandt. February – March 19. Opening February 5, 17.00-19.00.
C3 Gallery and concept store hosts a show of Roosmarijn Schoonewelle’... [more]
|
Pablo Pijnappel: Fontenay-aux-Roses
by Andrea Alessi
Pablo Pijnappel at Galerie Juliètte Jongma
January 8th, 2011 - February 19th, 2011
Posted
1/18/11
There’s a scene in Mad Men where advertising virtuoso, Don Draper, makes a poignant, albeit imaginary, pitch for Kodak’s new slide projector, coining the term “carousel” for the slide-filled wheel. “This device isn’t a space ship,” he says, “it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. Takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called ‘The Wheel’. It’s called ‘The Carousel’. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back hom... [more]
|
Andrea Alessi Picks January
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
1/10/11
This year’s first wave of gallery openings in Amsterdam saw a bit of the surreal swirled into a varying mixture of forward thinking, nostalgia, and a sort of retro-futurism. It would be hasty of me to make predictions for 2011 based on last weekend’s showings, but the early gallery offerings suggest the often-obsessive poetic and material mining of artists’ dreams, memories, and imaginations. Painting made a strong showing this month, though a case was also made for the whimsical conflati... [more]
|
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Schiphol
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
12/20/10
As a resident of the Netherlands, I’m not usually swayed by the customary wares and goods selected to satiate the last minute appetites of tourists at the airport. I got to thinking about them, however, on a recent trip through Schiphol Airport’s endless corridors, Kafkaesque queues, and security checks. The airport is an international space, yet in a way it is also a final frontier for a nation’s culture. For better or worse, it can offer first and last impressions, as wel... [more]
|
Helen Verhoeven
by Andrea Alessi
Helen Verhoeven at Stigter van Doesburg
November 6th, 2010 - December 18th, 2010
Posted
12/7/10
Helen Verhoeven’s series of large-scale paintings at Galerie Diana Stigter takes its name from Heidegger’s The Origin of the Work of Art in which he describes art as possessing a “thingly character.” The philosopher goes on to tease out the nature and transcendence of this unspecified thinglyness in art, but in Verhoeven’s paintings the meaning of this thingly character (a rather unsettling title) seems quite clear.
There is something familiar about these paintings that manages to evade our f... [more]
|
On View in December
by Andrea Alessi
Posted
12/7/10
The snow has been coming down hard in the frozen Netherlands but it hasn't seemed to stop anyone from venturing out to do holiday shopping. Nor has it stopped the activities in the galleries. If you can manage to find a train that will take you to Amsterdam , step off the snowy canals and pop into some gezellige galleries. If you like, you can do this as you shop in between navigating the festively lit 9 Straatjes and frenzied city center.
There is plenty of art to be se... [more]
|
Digital? Analogue!
by Andrea Alessi
Taco Anema, Paulien Barbas, Melanie Bonajo, Rob Bosboom, Morad Bouchakour, Dik Bouwhuis, Popel Coumou, Marrigje de Maar, Govert de Roos, Rineke Dijkstra, Leo Divendal, Isabel Firvida, Alicia Framis, Miklos Gaál, Joan Gannij, Jasper Groen, Sigudur Gudmundsson, Ni Haifeng, Jacqueline Hassink, Astrid Hermes, Scarlett Hooft Graafland, Nadine Hottenrott, Annabel Howland, Emily Kocken, Dirk Kome, Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, Dana Lixenberg, Annaleen Louwes, Thomas Manneke, Charlott Markus, Katja Mater, Hanna Mattes, Brígida Mendes, Dorothée Meyer, Antoinette Nausikäa, Adrienne Norman, Rob Nypels, Paulien Oltheten, Liza May Post, Carolin Reichert, Nono Reinhold, Lon Robbé, Public Space With a Roof, Thirza Schaap, Maurice Scheltens, Patricia Schimmel, Eddy Seesing, Han Singels, Peter Svenson, Roos Theuws, Armando Andrade Tudela, Paula van Ameijde, Daniëlle van Ark, Elsbeth Struijk van Bergen, Martijn van de Griendt, Frank van den Broeck, Eric van den Elsen, Rob van der Nol, Marc Philip van Kempen, Marijke van Warmerdam, Marianne Viero, Joyce Vlaming, Puck Willaarts, Henk Wilschut, Vincent Zedelius at Huis Marseille
November 27th, 2010 - February 27th, 2011
Posted
11/29/10
Very rarely do we consider the chemical processes of photography when we look at photographic prints; even less frequently do we consider the printer, the person in the darkroom dodging, burning, adjusting colors and times, emerging occasionally to scrutinize a test strip or analyze an exposure. Perhaps this is because we’ve entered a digital age in which photographs are as often pixels of pigment as they are fixed silver. Or maybe it is because photography’s mimetic nature makes... [more]
|
Reflections on Guards
by Andrea Alessi
Francis Alÿs at Bonnefanten museum
November 7th, 2010 - March 27th, 2011
Posted
11/22/10
The Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht is currently showing an exhibition of work by this year’s Biennial Award for Contemporary Art (BACA) laureate, Francis Alÿs, a Belgian native and somewhat of an artworld darling in this part of the world. I was at the museum the opening weekend and had the opportunity to revisit one of my favorite videos by the artist, Guards (2004).
I’ve seen Guards several times now, and it has yet to lose its appeal. There is something sweet, slightly funny, a... [more]
|
Cosima von Bonin
by Andrea Alessi
Cosima von Bonin at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art
October 10th, 2010 - January 9th, 2011
Posted
11/15/10
If German artist Cosima von Bonin were to manufacture furry slippers with the letters S-L-O-T-H printed on the soles, I would totally buy a pair. I feel like they’d paradoxically transform listlessness into a conscious activity, declaring: “I know I’m not doing anything, and I’m cool with that”. Instead I have to covet the plush feet of von Bonin’s giant stuffed bunnies who are currently lying around Witte de With listening to chilled out beats, the proud marks of their letharg... [more]
|
Trio of Tales: Goldberg, Polat, van der Keuken
by Andrea Alessi
Jim Goldberg at Foam - Fotografie Museum
October 1st, 2010 - November 21st, 2010
Posted
11/8/10
Photography is the medium of storytelling in this season’s main trio of Foam exhibitions. The photographers and exhibitions tell stories about people, places, circumstances, and the photographic process itself, each taking a slightly different approach. Jim Goldberg tells the harrowing tales of migrants and would-be migrants to Europe, adding a welcome reflexive spin; Ahmet Polat shares a modern and vibrant Turkey through the privileged position of intimacy; and an exhibition of Johan van... [more]
|
Persijn Broersen and Margit Lukács
by Andrea Alessi
Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács at Galerie Akinci
October 8th, 2010 - November 29th, 2010
Posted
10/18/10
Persijn Broersen and Margit Lukács’ artistic partnership questions the origins of contemporary visual culture. It is nothing new to say that film, mass media, and other forms of visual culture affect how we envision our surroundings and perceive the world. Nevertheless, postmodern attempts to denaturalize these perceptions often create interesting results. In their current solo show at Galerie Akinci, Broersen and Lukács take on the American wilderness with a play on Bambi. While the... [more]
|
Vectors of the Possible
by Andrea Alessi
Matthew Buckingham, Chto Delat/What is to be done?, Freee, Sharon Hayes, Elske Rosenfeld, Hito Steyerl, Runo Lagomarsino & Johan Tirén at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst
September 12th, 2010 - November 28th, 2010
Posted
10/11/10
The Vectors of the Possible at BAK in Utrecht are not exactly spatial – that is, the directions they take are not based entirely in geography or place. More than anything their directions are temporal, with magnitudes comprised of political and social units. The exhibition, relating to next month’s 2nd Former West Research Congress, explores the concept of the horizon in art and politics. With such a loaded subject, guest curator Simon Sheikh has commendably organized a didactic and phil... [more]
|
|
|
|
|
|
add to mylist
email this artist
report abuse
contact us for help