August 2, 2010

Frank Black comes with Herman Brood rock opera

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 2:50 pm

Frank Black, singer of American band The Pixies, is planning to play in a rock opera based on the life of Dutch artist and singer, Herman Brood, according to Ivo de Lange, an art dealer and friend of Brood’s. The opera is set to premiere in Houston, Texas, on 18 November and the Americans involved spent last weekend in Zwolle, Brood’s birth town, to learn all about the man.

Frank Black’s album Bluefinger of 2007 was entirely dedicated to Herman Brood, with a cover of Brood’s song ‘You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It’. I remember the evening news back in 2001 when they had announced that Brood committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel. He was 54.

Here’s a film a friend of mine (more in Dutch) had the chance to shoot of Frank Black playing at Brood’s grave at the Zorgvlied graveyard in Amsterdam, singing a song about Brood for the occasion:

Read more about the Netherlands’ famous rocker.

(Link: oor.nl)

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February 24, 2010

New Van Gogh discovered

Filed under: Art,History by Branko Collin @ 3:41 pm

Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle has a painting in its collection that it claims was made by Van Gogh. The painting is called De molen ‘Le blute-fin.’ According to the museum, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has confirmed its authenticity.

Although it was known in the art world that this painting existed, people so far have refused to attribute it to Vincent van Gogh. According to NRC it has motifs that were atypical for the 19th century painter. It was originally discovered in 1975 by Dirk Hannema, the museum director who let himself be fooled by Han van Meegeren’s fake Vermeers, and that also would not have helped.

See also: ‘Hidden’ painting by Van Gogh discovered, about a different painting.

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January 14, 2010

Zwolle lends commuters electric bicycles

Filed under: Bicycles,General,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 2:50 pm

The city of Zwolle will start a 1 million euro trial this year to lend commuters electric bicycles, Z24 reports.

The bicycle is one of the most popular forms of transport in the Netherlands, but only for short trips of up to 5 kilometres. Zwolle hopes to raise this radius to about 15 kilometres for some by providing powered loaners.

Electric bikes are regular bicycles with an auxiliary motor that you choose to switch on for instance during a climb or when cycling in a strong head wind. Powered bicycles have existed for a long time in the form of mopeds with pedals, but these tended to look (and operate?) rather unwieldy. The new e-bike looks just like a regular bicycle, but with a small battery pack.

Slightly off topic, cycling awareness blog Amsterdamize (aimed, obviously, at non-Dutchies), recently had a very nice photo series on how the cold and the snow and the ice manage to stop cycling in Amsterdam, i.e. not.

(Photo of a Schwinn Tailwind Electric Assist bike by Richard Masoner, some rights reserved)

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January 12, 2010

Artists sneak in and hang their works up in museums

Filed under: Art,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:20 pm
Bonnefantenmuseum

Last night, a group of young artists hung up their own works of art in three major Dutch museum, the Groninger Museum in Groningen, the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht and Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle. This act of protest was meant to draw attention to the fact that not just established artists should be in museums, but young, up and coming artists as well.

This morning the Bonnefanten Museum (shown here) said that they found a large black-and-white photo in the old art wing, while de Fundatie found a small colour painting among its collection. Both museums were closed at the time and neither of them has any idea how the art got there. Employees of the Groninger Museum saw a big object in their security cameras and when they went to check it out, the big object had disappeared. Spooky.

So besides this stunt making the news and all, it also tells me how useless the security actually is at all three museums.

(Link: depers.nl, Photo of Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht by Peter Zoon, some rights reserved)

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March 6, 2009

Comics academy to start next semester

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 2:22 pm

The Artez art academy in Zwolle, Overijssel, will offer a programme in drawing comics starting September, writes De Pers (Dutch). Head of the school’s Art and Design department, Wilhelm Weitkamp, told the paper: “Comics used to be seen as low culture in this country. That is changing.” (Sounds like code for: nobody’s buying comics anymore.)

The idea originated with comic artist Hanco Kolk whose inimitable Beauregard, see illustration, I regard as one of the best Dutch comics ever made. Kolk told NOS (Dutch): “I started as a comics artist during the time of the major comics magazines. When you were done, the other 24 artists would put your strip through the grinder. You could say we were teaching each other. When the big magazines fell away, this coaching aspect also disappeared. And you notice this in the work of new talent. They’re not good enough.”


Illustration from Hanco Kolk‘s Beauregard, the first part of a series about the capital of decadence, the city Meccano. Beauregard is a gossip reporter with an eye for scoops: “June 12, 12:30. I unravel the double life of baron De Lagnac.”

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October 14, 2008

Two odd acts of mindless violence

Filed under: Food & Drink,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:34 am
Street tile

Last Saturday, a 31-year-old man from Zwolle, Overijssel beat up a lumpia (spring roll) seller because the man did not sell vegetarian spring rolls. When the 60-year-old spring roll seller told him this last Saturday, the client got angry and beat the older man repeatedly in the face and on the head. A security guard of the shopping centre where the spring roll stand is located intervened and held the angry man until the police came to draw up a complaint.

Last Sunday in Nijmegen, Gelderland, a 31-year-old taxi driver ran over a 29-year-old man because he refused to pay his taxi driver colleague. The 29-year-old client was driven around for hours in a taxi and when the meter had reached an amount of 250 euro, the man couldn’t pay. He got out of the car and walked away. Two taxi drivers came to the ‘rescue’, with one of them driving over the reluctant client. A witness saw the incident and called the police.

What’s with this street tile of a ladybug? Since 1999 it has been the Dutch symbol for “no mindless violence” and can be found in front of bars, clubs and other places where fights usually break out.

(Links: vleesmagazine.nl, knurps.nl)

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September 19, 2008

Dutch graffiti artist looking at jail time

Filed under: Art,General by Orangemaster @ 8:50 am
Krae

Authorities in New York City have indicted a resident of the Netherlands who came there a ‘graffiti tourist’. According to the International Herald Tribune, US justice officials have issued an arrest warrant for Dutch resident Robbert Boxem, 23, from Zwolle who allegedly went to New York for the international graffiti event Meeting of Styles. He has been indicted on charges of spray painting a subway car and leading police on a dangerous chase, which occurred down the subway tracks! Boxem (aka KRAE) now faces charges of criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. The paper says the 23-year-old from Zwolle could get up to four years in prison if convicted. The warrant was issued on Thursday after he failed to turn up in court.

That’s one way to draw attention to yourself. Terribly insightful comments made on the gothamist site (here below) include, “Dutch art has really taken a dive since the days of Van Gogh, Vermeer and Rembrandt” and “He must have gotten tired of running around in wooden shoes and sticking his finger in dykes.”

(Links: gothamist.com, dutchnews.nl, Photo: duncancumming)

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