The Alpine Review

Read the review (in Dutch) I wrote on the website of Athenaeum Booksellers about the great new magazine The Alpine Review.... which observes the things that matter.

Inspiration

Inspiration is an ongoing process. Everything can be useful as a source. For design, for a concept, for cooperation, for a process itself. Images, exhibitions, packages, books, articles, objects, samples. It's a great part of work to collect, organise and display. Here are some examples.

Food Film Festival

Yesterday, during a lovely organic homemade Sunday lunch with friends ( lentil soup, Irish soda bread, eggs with mushroom oil, goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes) we decided to go to Food Film Festival. Tickets are almost sold out, but we've got them!

Food Film Festival 2012 from Food Film Festival on Vimeo.

Elmina Moisan

This is a painting by Elmina Moisan, the Chilean painter who lived from 1887-1938. Before I went to Chile I had never heard of her before. I came across her work at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes .
Besides the wonderful work by Maria Angelica Echavari of whom I wrote earlier, the section with Chilean paintings was a true treasure. This painting 'Interior' was my favourite. The first image is my secretly made photo, the second is from the museums' website. Mix both colour schemes in your imagination and that's about the true colours standing in front of the painting...

Green

Still lives in green. For I can't wait for spring.
With great ceramics from Scorlewald, a few of my favourite books, postcards from Scottish painters, recycled glass and Farrow&Ball wall paint.

Elke Dag een Draadje

Today I went to see the exhibition 'Elke dag een draadje' in Verzetsmuseum in Amsterdam. The title is part of a saying hardly used these days: elke dag een draadje...is een hemdsmouw in een jaar. A thread a day is a sleeve in a year. A moving exhibition of embroidery done by emprisoned women during the Second World War. They smuggled the yarn and the needles into the prison by hiding it in the laundry which had to be done by family, and finished pieces were smuggled out in the same way. The embroidery was made on any piece of fabric. With the embroidery they first of all kept themselves busy, and it was also a way of documentation, communication and resistance. The exhibition shows some  amazing pieces. made with dedication and perseverance. Tiny handkerchiefs, edges of sheets, large pieces of cloth, pin-cushions, comb-covers etcetera. Daily routine, wishes and reassurances were written and drawn with thin yarn. Also shown were skirts made after the war. Skirts made from small pieces of fabric used during the war quilted together and embroidered with messages of joy and hope.

Zarina Bhimji

And suddenly I came across the work of Zarina Bhimji this past weekend. Never heard of her before I must admit, although she as nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007. There will be an exhibition in the White Chapel gallery in London till late March. She descends from an Asian family in Uganda who fled to Britain in the seventies. Her work consists of films, photo's and installations. The sense of material is wonderful, as well as her colours. In her series 'She Loves to Breathe|Pure Silence her photo's are printed on muslin and framed in plexiglas. The topic is what Asian/African women had to bear when coming into the UK.
A film called 'waiting' is about a factory where sisal is made. The processfilmed very close and is abstracted so that tactility, sound and colour take over from the actual work. So beautiful!

Snapshot

This morning I went with a friend to a very good exhibition. Snapshot in Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. First of all, the striking exhibition design. So well done! The colours of the walls, the fonts used for titles, the lay-out of the exhibition; great. We later learned the exhibition design was from InsideOutside, Petra Blaisse's office. The topic is the relation between painting and photography in the late 19th, early 20th century. Breitner, Bonnard, Vuillard, Evenepoel are among the artists. Photography influenced their way of looking at the world around them and by doing so influenced their way of painting. At the start they used their camera as any other person; taking photographs of their family, their environment, their friends. More and more they used photography for research as well as art. We saw children, women in bath, street scenes, beaches, rooms, nudes, family scenes etcetera. For instance the out-of-focus effect, which is common in photography, became an element in Breitner's painted work. A must!

Textiles

I added a great new book to my library: Textiles-The Whole Story by Beverly Gordon, professor Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Uses, meanings, significance is the subtitle. It goes from the early beginning of fabric to the contemporary period and tells about textiles in human consciousness, survival, social meaning, power, communication and spirit. An in-depth survey, and lavishly illustrated. Textiles can tell a lot about human development, and as such is highly important to understand ourselves and our lives. A joy to read and see!

The girl who silenced the world

Through the LinkedIn group NPRio+20 someone sent this short film.
A brave girl, who speaks for her generation. She reflects her fear about the future of the planet, and addresses the members of the United Nations. Uncertainty about the future is also reflected in the painting above which I saw last Saturday when I was in the Neue National Galerie in Berlin. The exhibition Modern Times with their amazing collection from 1900 till 1945. In the exhibition design is clearly shown how development in society is paralleled with development in art.
The painting is by Lotte Laserstein and dates from 1930. It's called Abend über Potsdam.
Melancholy, uncertainty, threat and austerity we see, but also togetherness in this. Although every person is turned inwards their emotions, their arrangement as a group still portrays they are joint together.
So now watch the speech of the girl and feel the togetherness we need so desperately.