Last Thursday I went to the Cognitive Cities event at Trouw. The meeting dealt with how urbanism is evolving and what it can learn from new media. Here’s my report.

This month I have been travelling around the Netherlands a bit more than usual, so the ArtSlant gallery hop includes a big Elmgreen & Dragset show in Rotterdam. Also, since the culture budget cuts in the Netherlands might kill it, make sure you check out the NIMk exhibition.

Elmgreen & Dragset, The One and The Many @ Submarine Wharf, Rotterdam

Omer Fast @ NIMk, Amsterdam

Michael Kunze, Ruperts Worte, Davids Stimme @ Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam

These are the shows I reviewed for ArtSlant‘s Gallery Hop in April 2011.

Ryan McGinley, Somewhere Place @ Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam

Carl-Johan Högberg, Roderick Hietbrink @ Ron Mandos, Amsterdam

Cloud Sounds @ NIMk, Amsterdam

Recently my book review of OPEN 20 on the Masters of Media blog was republished on the French digital magazine OWNI. As a follow up to that article I wrote another one, specifically for them, regarding a related event here in Amsterdam. The conference, titled The Populist Front, was the perfect occasion to write some considerations I had been brewing about some art shows I’ve seen.
Read the article here.

Off Beat is an Amsterdam-based magazine about alternative and underground cinema. In the lates issue you can find my review of Champion, a documentary about the trials and tribulations of Danny Trejo, the bad-ass Mexican from Machete.
Go enjoy it here.

These are the shows I reviewed for ArtSlant‘s Gallery Hop in March 2011.

The Temporary Stedelijk 2 @ Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Mika Rottenberg, Dough Cheese Squeeze and Tropical Breeze. Video Works 2003-2010 @ De Appel, Amsterdam

Jan Bokma, Audio Tour @ P/////AKT, Amsterdam

[Cross-posted on the Video Vortex website]

Upload Cinema is a monthly video spree that quite literally takes the most valuable YouTube gems to the big screen. That is, the not-so-big one of the Uitkijk, the smallest and coziest movie theater in Amsterdam.
Dutch creative director Dagan Cohen and cinema programmer Barbara de Wijn started the initiative because they thought (the best) YouTube videos deserved a bigger screen. So, to make sure they selected only the most compelling, they made the format of their cinematic get-together strictly editorial and topical, with a monthly theme explored with the help of experts and, of course, crowd-sourced suggestions from the users of their website. (more…)

These are the shows I reviewed for ArtSlant‘s Gallery Hop in February 2011.

Pieter Lemmens, Quality, Politics & Society @ Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam

Dominik Borkowski @ Ververs Gallery, Amsterdam

Sven Kroner, The Air Was Magic When We Played @ Fons Welters Gallery, Amsterdam

Anouk Kruithof, Check/ double Check, 2010

The piece that most represents my idea of art, or at least of the way it affects our perception, is Martin Creed’s Work No. 227, The Lights Going On and Off (2000). Whether installed in a corridor or a room, the piece de facto works as a frame for whatever else is there, from the bare walls to other artworks. As the craft of an artist has now become scattered across all sorts of media, the capability of framing a world into another has emerged as an important heritage of conceptual practices. What is art if not a way of looking at things a little more closely?

Anouk Kruithof‘s work is all about the framing. Her language is simple and light like the materials she uses, ranging from postcards to stacks of paper, newspapers, books and prints. She takes photos and transfers the images across different surfaces and spaces, composing spatial mnemonic theaters in the form of minimal installations.

What makes Kruithof’s works different from pure conceptual speculations about the act of art creation is the affection for the tactile and sharing dimension of the pieces, as well as a longing for perpetual memory. We are not talking about semiotics, but rather of the human mind, with its pulsating emotions and seizing logic co-existing together.

After seeing Anouk’s work at the Adler Gallery booth at ART Rotterdam, where she also won the Illy prize, I sent her a few questions about her practice. The following is the exchange that took place.

Read the interview on ArtSlant.

These are the shows I reviewed for ArtSlant‘s Gallery Hop in January 2011.

Roger Hiorns @ Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam

Roy Villevoye, The Histories @ Motive Gallery, Amsterdam

Werken Pop-Up Show @ Serieuze Zaken Gallery, Amsterdam