October 2, 2012

Live snails used in art exhibition spark controversy

Filed under: Animals,Art by Orangemaster @ 10:30 pm

Controversial artist Tinkebelle (aka Katinka Simonse) has done it again: she’s collected some 1,000 live snails and glued colourful buttons and beads on their shells, which will be part of an exhibition opening this Thursday about animals at the VillaZebra children’s museum in Rotterdam. The usual animal groups are of course very upset. I’m surprised the museum is all cool with this and I wonder what parents are going to tell their kids.

The idea is that by turning the snail shells into artworks, the artist makes the snails special and even gives them personality. That is her explanation. Last year we had the hamsters going round and round for hours in balls that was judged OK after all by the courts, and then there’s always the famous cat hand bag she made that went viral.

From 2010, here’s a video with English subtitles about why she killed her own cat (and didn’t let the vet do it) and more.

I’m not a fan, but she really knows how to get people’s attention.

(Link: www.rnw.nl, Photo of Snails by davepatten, some rights reserved)

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September 26, 2012

Big slow slugs in France by Florentijn Hofman

Filed under: Animals,Art by Orangemaster @ 5:12 pm

Rotterdam artist Florentijn Hofman, the guy who brought us the big cute ducks, big bunnies in Sweden and in Nijmegen, and much more greatness, just finished a show in Angers, France with giant slugs made of plastic bags (slideshow).

The work is made out of 40.000 plastic bags that move in the wind. The slugs are ascending this steep city staircase that leads up to a huge Catholic church, essentially signifying their slow crawl towards death. The work reminds us of religion, mortality, natural decay and the slow suffocation of commercialized societies.

(Link: www.designboom.com, photo florentijnhofman.nl)

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September 20, 2012

Rotterdam to open ’embassy’ in Amsterdam

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:20 pm

Back in 2009 the region of Twente planned to open an ’embassy’ in Amsterdam. No idea if they actually did, but it sounded cool.

Now the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second largest city, is scheduled to open an ’embassy’ (delegate, house of Rotterdam) in the capital.

According to one of the initiators Kristian Koreman, the ’embassy’ must ensure more “intercultural exchanges” between Rotterdam and Amsterdam (aka 010 and 020, phone exchanges and pet names for the cities) “We will open next Wednesday in Pakhuis de Zwijger (shown above) and be open periodically.”

Of course, Rotterdam will also get an Amsterdam ’embassy’ , which will open its doors on 21 November in Rotterdam.

(Link: www.at5, Photo of Pakhuis de Zwijger, hub for many “new media” events and initiatives in Amsterdam, by bMA, may be used under condition that the source is mentioned.)

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September 13, 2012

Dutch to produce world’s first almost 100% recyclable asphalt

Filed under: Dutch first,Sustainability,Technology by Orangemaster @ 5:00 am

Dutch company VolkerWessels has just unveiled a Dutch invention called the HERA System (Highly Ecological Recycling Asphalt System), which is said to recycle asphalt “cleaner, better and cheaper”. The first HERA in the world was recently installed at the Rotterdam Asphalt Plant.

Asphalt is normally produced and recycled by directly heating raw materials. The HERA System reuses almost 100% of old asphalt, has much lower harmful gas emissions and saves on costs. As well, the asphalt produced is of high quality and last longer.

The HERA System was developed together with Swiss company Ammann, a major player in asphalt production facilities.

Watch the corporate Dutch video with drummers and cooking meat comparisons.

(Link: www.agentschapnl.nl, Photo VolkerWessels)

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August 15, 2012

Rotterdames, 3 times 52 odes to the women of Rotterdam

Filed under: Art,Photography by Branko Collin @ 11:11 pm

The name may be a bit unfortunate—rot means the same thing in Dutch as it does in English—but what were they to do?

They being three artists who post their own odes to the women of Rotterdam each week at Rotterdames.net, creating a vivid cross section of the second-largest city of the Netherlands in the process. Baschz is the sketch artist, Milan Boonstra the photographer and Janjoost Jullens the writer of the website.

According to De Weekkrant, the artists have already published more than 100 odes and are well on their way to their goal of 156 odes.

The news site quotes Janjoost Jullens about what makes the women of Rotterdam so special: “They are real, more real than anywhere else. They do not need to be pretty in a model kind of way. In Amsterdam the ladies look beautiful from a distance, but when you get closer you see it is all fake. In Rotteram what you see is what you get. We would like to thank the women of Rotterdam for that. Our odes are really a sort of ‘thank you’.”

And in that spirit I would like to tip my hat to Rotterdame Astrid Oosenburg for telling me about this initiative.

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August 5, 2012

Art by Simon Schrikker and Marie Civikov

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 1:33 pm

Yesterday the old, today the new.

Last week art blog Trendbeheer showcased a couple of artists I had not seen before (here and here).

Simon Schrikker, 2010

Simon Schrikker was born in Utrecht but currently lives and works in Rotterdam. His work has a certain three-dimensional quality, not in the least because he sometimes puts the paint on thickly, and is not afraid to extend the canvas when the subject calls for it. Check his painting of a shark to see how the thick, sharp paint amplifies the danger emanating from the animal.

Schrikker’s work will be on display at the Drents Museum in Assen from September 15 to January 27.

I just realized, Marie Civikov, 2012

Marie Civikov studied at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam. Bold colours and aggressive imagery make these paintings stand out. Civikov’s work is currently part of an exhibition at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam.

Lively art! Check out their websites.

(Photos by the artists.)

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July 11, 2012

The Netherlands grows itself a bit further

Filed under: Architecture,History by Branko Collin @ 10:53 am

Tweede Maasvlakte indicated with a dotted line. The white blotches to the North-East are caused by sunlight reflecting off the greenhouses of the Westland area.

Today Queen Beatrix will officially close the last bit of an 11 kilometre dam that encloses an area of the North Sea that should become new land this year.

The Tweede Maasvlakte will be a 2,000 hectares large area atttached to the first Maasvlakte (‘tweede’ means ‘second’) outside Rotterdam that will be used as part of the port. The Betuwelijn railroad will be extended into it. It will mainly be used as a container harbour.

The new land will grow the area of the harbour by 20%. The dam surrounding Tweede Maasvlakte will contain 20,000 blocks of stone. RTV Rijnmond calls it an ‘ultra-Dutch project’, as it involves ‘building land to trade upon’.

To my knowledge there are no plans yet to extend this thing all the way to England, though people have been talking about moving our national airport to the sea.

(Image: NASA + 24 Oranges)

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June 18, 2012

Photo expo shows 24 hours of Rotterdam

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 6:10 pm

De Kracht van Rotterdam (‘kracht’ means power, strength) is a photo exhibition and contest in which 12 photographers, one for each neighbourhood of the city, show many facets of the largest port of the Netherlands.

The photographers had to base their pictures on a poem by Jules Deelder and Jana Beranová, and each had to shoot four photos within 24 hours. Click on the photographers’ names to see their works, a short bio, and a map that shows where in Rotterdam the photos were taken.

Starting July 2 there will be an exhibit in the streets of Rotterdam. The exact locations will be announced on the website. On that same day, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb will award one photo with a prize of 3,500 euro at one of the locations. The exhibit will run until September.

From the website:

We should not just show [the power of Rotterdam] in the media and in museums, but also and especially outside these institutions, in the city itself. The people of Rotterdam can be found on the road more often than in a museum. Show Rotterdammers what their city looks like, what the city can do, what it does and achieves. Show South how North sleeps, show Hilligersberg an afternoon in Charlois, and show that there really isn’t much that separates dreams, ambitions and possibilities.

Shown here is the harbour area of Hoogvliet Pernis, as portrayed by Jet van Schie who graduated in 2005 from the Willem de Kooning academy.

Update 19-6-2012: I had a quick chat with the organiser, and have merged the info she gave me with the article—Branko.

(Link: Trendbeheer)

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June 11, 2012

Polar bear tries to run, don’t get far

Filed under: Animals by Branko Collin @ 11:38 am

Last Tuesday the playful teen polar bear Vicks hurled rocks at the glass walls of his Blijdorp Zoo prison in Rotterdam , but ultimately shattered only 5 layers of the 7 centimetre glass wall (of an unspecified total number of layers).

Writes the zoo (in the video description):

The video shows that Vicks was simply playing with the stone and was not attacking the window deliberately. Shortly after 9 am Rob van der Horst (together with Ari Stolk) was unsuspectingly just shooting a film in he polar bear exhibit.

The strength of the window has been judged by various glass experts. Whether or not Vicks and his mum will be able to use their outdoor exhibit and the huge tank depends on the results of the investigation. The commitment of everyone in Rotterdam Zoo is to let Vicks stay in Rotterdam.

Some of the dialog at the end:

Gent 1: “Jesus, get out of here.”
Lady: “How is that possible?”
Gent 2: “The window is broken.”

And from there on it is a repetition of Jesuses and “The window is broken”. The matter-of-fact attitude by the people in the video may be explained by the fact that Blijdorp zoo has had high-profile break-outs in the past.

(Video: Youtube / Diergaarde Blijdorp. Photo of young master Vicks last summer by Flickr user jinterwas, some rights reserved. Link: Treehugger.)

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May 31, 2012

Dead Duck Day is just around the corner

Filed under: Animals,Science,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:08 pm

Kees Moeliker, curator of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, was awarded an IgNobel back in 2003 — the tongue-in-cheek awards of Improbable Research — for writing about “The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.”

On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard raped the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an ‘Attempted Rape Flight’ that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.

This year Dead Duck Day will be celebrated on the lawn next to the new glass pavilion of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam at 17:55 sharp, the actual time the duck lost his life on that historic day in 1995. The historic stuffed necro-duck will be at the event, owned by Moeliker himself. They’ll be a discussion about finding new ways to prevent birds from colliding with glass and more news about dead ducks.

Don’t miss out on the traditional six-course duck dinner at the Chinese restaurant around the corner afterwards.

And if you have room for dessert, enjoy this six-minute movie about the two colliding ducks.

(Link: www.improbable.com, boingboing.net)

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