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Hydraulic engineering has always had a strong appeal on Dutch artists. In 1932 painter Johan Mastenbroek (1875-1945) made drawings and paintings of the construction of the IJsselmeer Dam. The ancient theme of the battle against water is given a new look at the exhibition of work by Hermkens. For the first time ever the technological innovations in hydraulic engineering, the scaling up of dredging material and the size and complexity of large land reclamation projects are portrayed. The Palm Islands, the artificial peninsulas constructed of sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf on the coast of Dubai, are an example of the reclamation of land, as is the Maasvlakte near Rotterdam and the sand strip for the Hanzelijn near Lelystad; by means of pen drawings Hermkens carefully seeks to find the exact right cut-out or detailed plan of the various locations where Van Oord works.
Jeroen Hermkens

Jeroen Hermkens (1960) was educated at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten (Academy of Visual Arts) in Utrecht and at the Atelier Lithografique Champfleury in Paris. His paintings and lithographs have regularly been on display both in the Netherlands and abroad. In1996 he was awarded the Dutch Graphic Art Prize for his lithographs. Recently work by Hermkens was exhibited at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (2007), at gallery Juffermans in Utrecht and at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht (2009). After having been elected Artist of the Year there was a solo presentation of his work at Museum Jan van de Togt in Amstelveen in 2008. His work is included in a large number of art collections of major companies, amongst which that of ING Bank, Rabobank, Shell, Van Bruggen Adviesgroep and Van Lanschot Bankiers.

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Impressive Survey
Over seventy works of art by 32 Dutch ceramists, belonging to several generations, together constitute an impressive survey of the development of Dutch ceramic art. At the beginning of the twentieth century inventive playing with glazing was an important factor of the works of ceramists like Chris Lanooij (1881-1948) en Hein Andrée (1882-1961). In the middle of the fifties potters like Johan van Loon Until 15 august: (1934) and Jan van der Vaart (1931-2000) experimented with more free forms. Work by Van Loon is extremely versatile and still startles the beholder; through ceramic sculpting and vases that were produced in limited edition he has created his characteristic oeuvre. Van der Vaart is known as a grand innovator of ceramic art despite the fact that his works have remained both functional and practical: so-called ‘sculpturality’ is nevertheless typical of his vases. The generation of Barbara Nanning (1957) and her contemporaries, amongst whom Geert Lap and Olaf Stevens, shows that ceramic art has developed into an entirely autonomous form of artistic expression. The younger generation is represented by work of Esther Stasse and Wietske van Leeuwen.

Unique International Collection
The revolutionary work of Hans Coper (1920-1981) and Lucie Rie (1902-1995) is considered to be the main part of the collection of English ceramics from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Together with Bernard Leach (1887-1979), these ceramists have been extremely important for the development of Dutch potters. The expressive work by Peter Voulkos (1924), who used clay as a free form of expression, has also left its marks on future generations, as can be witnessed from the work by Irene Vonck (1952). In the international pavilion, which presents eighty works by 45 foreign ceramists, a lot of attention is also paid to ceramic art from Germany, Denmark and Japan.

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Che Guevara
To the general public Burri is primarily known for the famous portrait he made of Guevara back in 1963. The photograph showing a relaxed Guevara with a big cigar in the right-hand corner of his mouth became popular throughout the world. It made Burri instantly famous. At the exhibition it becomes clear that this picture is actually part of a series that Burri made of Guevara. It typifies Burri’s way of taking photographs – he does not wait for the specific, right moment to take a picture but instead gives an account of the events occurring in front of his camera in the form of a series of photographs. Burri’s photography is direct and differs from the work by his friend Henri Cartier-Bresson, who carefully waits for the moment suprême to occur before he actually takes a photograph.
Artist friends

Photographers like Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, actresses like Ingrid Bergman and artists like Yves Klein and Picasso were part of Burri’s circle of friends. He visited them either at home, at their studio or at the pub. He portrayed Giacometti working on one of his sculptures in his studio and Le Corbusier in his study. Burri not only captures their life, but also their work on camera. He made a series of photographs on the opening of Le Corbusier’s La Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamps. He also took photographs at the grand Picasso exhibition in Milan in 1953. He closely monitored his good friend Tinguely during the construction of his spectacular moving machines. This resulted in a great many highly spontaneous photographs. In the sixties Burri travelled to Brazil to take photographs of modern architecture and city planning by Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier.

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‘Tour Experience’ focuses on the Netherlands and the Tour de France. All cities that have ever been the starting point of the cycling race are paid special attention to: from Amsterdam in 1954, the very first city outside France from which the peloton had ever departed, up to Rotterdam as the fifth-in-line Dutch city to be the starting point of the Tour in 2010. The rapid change of both the Tour and cycling in general becomes visible. The bicycle of Jan Janssen is in no way similar to the aerodynamic cycles used for racing nowadays. Knitted cycling garments which are presented, refer to times long gone by. Not only cycling itself, but also the entire Tour caravan has altered enormously over the years. The media hype surrounding the spectacle and the fame of the cyclists have both increased tremendously, just as the number of masseurs who are ready and willing to take care of the cyclists 24/7. ‘Tour Experience’ pays attention to all those who participate in the cycling race: from masseur to team leader, from sponsor to reporter and from mechanic to tour hostess.
Milestones

The Tour victories by Jan Jansen in 1968 and by Joop Zoetemelk in 1980: they are both milestones in the Dutch history of the Tour. The yellow jersey worn by Zoetemelk when he cycled towards victory through the Parisian streets is put on display, just as the bicycles of both Dutch winners. The exhibition brings together victories by cyclists like Knetemann, Boogerd, Winnen, Theunisse and Gesink. Other memorable moments, like the bad fall of Wim van Est, are also brought to the notice. Special attention is paid to Bordeaux and the Alpe d’Huez. Both are places where the Dutch have managed to gain stage victories. Moreover, the Alpe d’Huez is the main place where Dutch fans gather in order to encourage ‘their’ heroes.

Experience

The ‘Tour Experience’ offers visitors of all ages the opportunity to find out for themselves what it means to participate in the most renowned cycling event of the year. A virtual track offers visitors the opportunity to ride the prologue of Rotterdam themselves. At set times visitors are allowed to take place on the massage table in order to get a professional massage. At a mass sprint both young and old can take on the role of Mart Smeets, providing live commentary on the race. Especially for children, a special track is laid out throughout the exhibition. They can design their own jersey and may ride various different bicycles. Through several activities they discover how and what cyclists eat and drink during the race, what stages are, and why cyclists ride as a team.

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Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s cultured and sophisticated art, while thrusting its roots down into South American origins, is nurtured by a rich and varied visual culture as well as an in-depth knowledge of European and South-American literature, philosophy and anthropology. Italian culture left a deep-seated mark on her; its great classical authors, such as Dante, and its artists and architects –Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Palladio – figure among her references. She read André Breton, Tristan Tzara, Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, and particularly liked Paul Eluard. She later discovered North American literature, Walt Whitman, and the writers of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and, later, Jack Kerouac.

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra always drew. Her radically figurative drawings are never “beautiful” in the classic sense of the term. They have a rough, immediate quality, a sense of urgency to them. They feature many personal elements. Since 1997, the artist finishes her drawings by dipping them in wax. This treatment gives her work a unique materiality and endows the pencil line with ambiguous depth. The wax serves as a translucent skin, providing a patina to the drawing that transports it to another time.

The artist readily uses a variety of paper qualities and colours, and is particularly fond of accounting pads with columns marked by red lines. As a result she can use old paper, often of mediocre quality, which she enjoys rummaging around for at flea markets. Her line is fluid, firm and applied in an unbroken movement. The shapes are often filled in, as if “coloured in” in graphite, in a wide variety of greys and blacks, and sometimes, though rarely, set off by a touch of yellow, pink or red.

Each of her drawings is a work of art in its own right, telling a particular story and revealing a particular soul, but Vásquez de la Horra likes to arrange them to form large wall installations comprising up to a hundred pieces at times of a variety of sizes. The setup is temporary, susceptible to being modified for a given space. It requires an attentive gaze and an intuitive sense on the part of the artist to produce a narrative structure that is strictly speaking storyless yet imbued with a humour that is at once exuberant, baroque and filled with acuity.

Typography is widely present in Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s work. Many of her drawings combine figure and writing, with the latter changing the import of the picture. She likes to use capital letters, small and large, that she lays out as she wishes with no regard for correct grammatical breaks, thereby producing surprising words, charged with new meanings. Sometimes the artist allows the words to take up most of the space, dominating the motif and becoming the real subject of the drawing. It is tempting, in particular in the German context, to compare her way of working with language to that of the great masters of subversion of words and letters from the Dada period, Kurt Schwitters and Raoul Hausmann in particular.

In relation to her anthropological studies, myths and popular tales are at the centre of the artist’s concerns and provide her with the subject of many drawings. Religion and sex are also major themes in her work. She takes up as subjects the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Conception, as well as saints, such as Lazarus and Sebastian. As for sex, it’s treated very naturally and quite casually. Politics is also an important component in Vásquez de la Horra’s world, although it tends to play a latent role.

Vásquez de la Horra also participates in the tradition of a great family of artists, one of whose ancestors are Goya and Redon. Some of her figures, particularly their faces, seem to be a discreet, vibrant tribute to the great ‘master of blacks’. Like Redon, Vásquez de la Horra has a pronounced taste for the strange and the morbid. And like him, she has a predilection for skulls, hanged bodies, ghostly apparitions, and the figure of Saint Sebastian that Redon drew and painted often. She has managed nearly imperceptibly in her work to retranscribe this influence in her own pictorial idiom.

Biography
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra was born in Viña del Mar, Chile, in 1967. She transfers at twelve to the Fine Arts Academy of Valparaíso. At nineteen, she leaves for Santiago. The Chile Crea movement of artists and students for democracy was founded at that time and Sandra Väsquez de la Horra actively participated in it. She moved back to Viña del Mar in 1989. She enrolled in the university to study visual communication and graphic design, with a particular emphasis on typography. In 1995, she leaves for Europe, where for a year in Düsseldorf, she attended classes given by Jannis Kounellis at the Kunstakademie. She returns to Germany in 1999, invited by Rosemarie Trockel to attend her classes. Finally, between 2001 and 2003, she completes her studies at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne. She lives and works in Germany since then.

Her work has among others been exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musem KunstPalast in Düsseldorf, and is present in various public and private collections.

A catalogue accompanying the show will be published in June 2010 by Hatje Cantz. 184 pages, 136 full colour illustrations, English – French – German, 39,90 euro. Available at the museum shop.

Download the press release as pdf here.

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Prostitution has enjoyed a long tradition of tolerance in Amsterdam and, as with soft drugs, the Netherlands’ approach is to legalise the trade and impose regulations. Basically, they know people are going to do it anyway, so they may as well keep it safe for those involved. In addition to preventing forced prostitution, this open and honest approach means sex-workers here have their own union, plenty of police protection, an information centre (for visitors as well), frequent monitoring and testing and professional standards.
Visiting the Red Light District

The best time to see the fluorescent red glow of the Red Light District is once the sun goes down. The area is bustling with visitors and groups of tourists. It is best to travel in a pair or in a group, as the area also attracts some seedier characters. Grab a map and venture out or if you’re keen to learn more take one of the many specialised tours.
Not everything goes

There are certain rules in place to ensure the safety of prostitutes and visitors to the Red Light District. It is forbidden to take photos of the women, and this is strictly enforced. Although there is 24-hour video surveillance in most parts of the district, be aware of pickpocketers. They tend to target crowds of distracted tourists, so keep an eye on your belongings and leave your valuables in a safe at the hotel. Many families and people who need to get up for work the next morning live in this area. Respect their neighbourhood, and do not yell or cause disturbances.
There is more to the Wallen

The Wallen, also known as the Rossebuurt to Amsterdammers and the Red Light District to visitors is actually the oldest part of Amsterdam. The neighbourhood is chock-full of interesting shops, pubs, fantastic restaurants, leaning gabled houses and the city’s most charming canals. Don’t miss the vibrant Nieuwmarkt square, the gothic Oude kerk or a walk along the centre of Amsterdam’s Chinatown, the Zeedijk (also home to an impressive Buddhist temple).

http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/spotlight/redlightdistricts

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