Get your Eurostar ticket or book your flight to Amsterdam. This coming weekend is the Amsterdam Art Weekend. All participating galleries are creating exhibitions just for the show, and you're unlikely to find anything like it again. Most of the artists are residents or alum of the Rijksakademie or De Ateliers (two of the most prestigious artist in residence programs in the city). These artists have international reputations and their work tends to be incredibly specialized.
There will be a number of exhibitions, performances, and gallery specials. This event will give viewers the opportunity to meet the artists so that no matter what you walk away feeling you've got your finger on the pulse of Contemporary Art and Design. There are a number of interactive and film projects, although if you're like me and prefer photography and painting then the artists to see are Marlene Dumas and Vivian Maier.
"Amy - Blue" (2011)
© Marlene Dumas
photo: Peter Cox
Image provided by: The Stedelijk Museum
Dumas' exhibtion "The Image as a Burden" is currently running at the Stedelijk Museum and will be running until January 4th. So if you miss the weekend, you'll still have a chance to see her work. Her highlighted piece is the "Nuclear Family" (2013) but I'm quite partial to this one entitled "Amy-Blue" (2011). I was and still am a massive Amy Winehouse fan, and her death was both tragic and premature. This painting captures Amy's struggle with success, drug dependency, and a volatile relationship. I love the way Marlene focuses on the emotional condition of the figure and tries to bring that through to the viewer.
Vivian Maier's exhibition "Vivian Maier- Street photographer" at the Foam offers that metropolis decadence experience I crave. Maier passed in 2009 and her work spans her life through living in New York and Chicago. The professional nanny, documented her life through photography and left about 150,000 negatives by the time of her death. It is interesting that none of her work was discovered until the end of her life, she certainly would have been considered just as talented as her contemporaries. She also made a number of recordings and motion pictures in addition to photographs. This exhibition focuses on her work from 1950-1980 and includes a number of pieces. I love her self-portrait. I've had to bite my tongue and not say "Selfie". She encompasses the view that a self portrait should display how you view yourself, not how you wish to be seen. The focus is on identity not display. As I think art should be.
"Vivian Maier"
New York, 10 September 1955
© Vivian Maier
Maloof Collection
Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery New York, 1955
Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam
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