contemporary..

This blog is also meant to get rid of some very persistant prejudices about our beloved city (Amsterdam). Like the idea that everubody is continuously high. People from Amsterdam do not smoke. It's the tourists that smoke. That's how we recognize them: bleary eyed on rental bikes smiling at you because they assume you're part of the world wide pot-family. This is not true. We make money, grow weed and have the best economy of Europe, together with Estonia and Austria.
Another widely spread misunderstanding is that Amsterdam would be an artistic city. Also not true. Amsterdam is so un artistic that the city council had to start a department to help artistic people to start their own artist run centre. Amsterdam closed down the Rijksmuseum (right,where all the Rembrandts are) and the Stedelijk Museum (modern art) for indefinite time to renovate the lot. No estimations are being made at what date the museums open again but it is already like this for a couple of years and it will last at least until the 2010's.
Amsterdam has, even at the best of times, no museum for contemporary art. For this you have to go to the south of the Netherlands, to Tilburg, where an old textile plant harbors one of the finest art collections of the country.

The De Pont Stichting shows an impressive retropsective of Dutch artist Job Koelewijn who works with almost all materials available and is hard to classify. In this work, that he originally produced for the Amsterdam based gallerist Fons Welters, he stopped clocks but moves the space to which the clocks are confined. He also took the part of the Welters gallery and rebuilt it around the work in Tilburg. Ridiculous and astonishing..
Another contemporary art eat your art out was the performance of the Brabant born artist Carina Diepens who has work in the projectspace.

The collection od De Pont is balanced and international. There are two small works by Kapoor that are wonderful..



..and there are a couple of Dutch artists here and there that are legendary and this exhibition has works by René Daniels, who is originally from the city of light (Eindhoven)..


But all in all the magnificence of Koelewijns work goes well with all international and national stars in Tilburg. When you are visiting Holland and you want to have an impression of contemporary art from a Dutch perspective, don't hesitate to take the train to Tilburg and leave Amsterdam for what it is: cocksure and self centered but trusting on a reputation that is not supported by facts.