Amsterdam Sex Museum

The Amsterdam Sex Museum is a skinny building located on Damrak Street squeezed in amongst equally thin cafes and coffeeshops. It is so small it is easy to miss it and wander into a café next door while mistakenly expecting erotic art. Contrary to popular expectation, the Sex Museum is unornamented and unimposing – on the outside.

The Sex Museum is open from 9:30am-11:30pm every day. Virtually any time you are looking to learn about the history of American pin-up girls, or Chinese erotic art, you can bring your 4€ and make your way through the museum along with a flurry of other visitors. I arrived at the Museum at 10pm on a Thursday night and the number of visitors there intrigued me. I was already curious about the experience of visiting a sex museum for the first time, and in Amsterdam, and on a Thursday evening, when I thought I would be one of three or four people there. Thus when I found myself having to peer over people’s shoulders to look at the “Marble Phallus-statue” from 500 B.C., and making friends while we laughed at the “Original stone phallus dating from the Roman age,” I was pleasantly surprised with my company. However, the majority of people there came with their significant other(s), which created a bit of an awkward experience as a solo viewer late Thursday night.

The museum sports sculptures, paintings, and photographs depicting sex poses, masturbation, and foreplay from all over the world. Upon entering the museum, a strange, plastic, mechanized man suited in a trench coat and hat greets you with a gruff “Hey.” This motorized mannequin is holding his trench coat closed a little too tightly, and is a little too aggressive with his greeting. Before you can reach for your pepper spray, he rolls forward, busts open his trench coat, and reveals his unbuttoned pants and erect penis. I was concerned this museum would cater to the male gaze, and this aggressor being the first thing I saw did not alleviate this concern, but the rest of the museum did quell this worry and impress me to some extent.

I commend the museum for showcasing a medley of art forms and gender perspectives. Although nearly all of the art pieces were copies, it was still an interesting experience to read about these artifacts, which is what I believe the museum is trading on in addition to its flamboyant humor. I was most interested in the representations of the female body. In nearly everything I saw, there were extremely realistic representations of women’s proportions, which is the absolute opposite of what we see in media today. In the “Plates With Erotic Scenes” from the excavations in Pompeii, it seems as if the artists who designed the pottery took extra care to carve and paint the fat onto both men and women’s bodies. The life-size mannequin of the Dutch “Spy and Courtesan” Mata Hari showcases her curvy body with pride. Even peeking at the old American pin-up magazines behind the glass casing in this Dutch museum reminded me that not too long ago, American media celebrated a fuller female body as well. The Chinese paintings were the most mystifying for me, because although the men and women’s bodies were extremely realistic, and the sexual poses were unrelentingly graphic and fairly amusing, the women all had miniscule feet. In the first painting I saw, I could not figure out what the red devil horn-like objects protruding from the woman’s ankles were supposed to be – until I realized that in China, the ideal body for a woman includes tiny feet. They dutifully represent this in their erotic art.

The flickering fluorescent lighting of the rooms irked me. It made the entire experience a cross between being tossed into a bad pornography, a hospital visit, and a decent museum that has a few really cool things to share. The plastic breasts on the walls and the giant penises were funny, but I think they detracted from what the museum could achieve. Obviously it is a tourist attraction, but it seemed like every time I was nodding my head and enjoying learning about something, I would turn my head and find my space invaded by a giant penis, or, for a change of pace, a centerpiece of penises (or “centerpenis”). That being said, I appreciate the notion of not taking sex too seriously – at the end of the day, the message the Amsterdam Sex Museum sends is that for men and women all over the world, both sex and laughter are unifying aspects of humanity.

Gallery 1.16: Rose-Colored Daguerreotypes

The Rijksmuseum, arguably the most famous museum in Amsterdam, is known for its bright glass-ceiling lobby, Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings that masterfully play with light, and gorgeously lit glass windows. Yet despite all this emphasis on light, one dark gallery sits on the first floor—Gallery 1.16. Here, conversation quiets and faces of stern contemplation turn soft. As you walk in, half-light dims the mood and you confront ten black boxes hanging at eye level on dark painted walls. When you glimpse inside a box, you see one small photograph—a daguerreotype, delicately ornamented and nestled in a velvet-lined case or fancifully decorated into a brooch. As a medium, the daguerreotype emphasizes the possession, fragility, and preciousness of life. As a gallery, 1.16 overemphasizes the romantic quality of daguerreotypes without addressing their full history.

The daguerreotype was the earliest photographic process and is today perhaps the most haunting. Created in 1839 and popularized in the 1860s, the daguerreotype is made when a copperplate coated in silver was polished and sensitized to light with iodine vapor. The plate is then placed in the camera, exposed for 30-90 seconds, and then removed from the camera and placed in the dark above a heated mercury bath. As the mercury vapor reacted with the plate’s surface, an image appeared that was subsequently fixed. The process resulted in unique reflective pieces of metal with the image glinting upon it. The beautiful metallic picture evokes a celebration of the life depicted. Its fragility renders both object and life as precious, delicate entities. Daguerreotypes were held in the hands to capture the almost surreal experience of holding someone physically. The physicality of the photographs—three-dimensional pieces of metal—successfully translates the realness of photography; it captures the living, physical essence of the person by mimicking its status as an object in the world. Most sitters were high status objects in the world—primarily in the upper class—and the gallery displays daguerreotypes that align with this custom. The lives of the worthy are here delicately displayed.

The hushed and solemn atmosphere of the gallery successfully conveys the preciousness and fragility daguerreotypes were made to express. Each box, like a small casket, individualizes and sanctifies the daguerreotype it houses. Lighting within the boxes tones down the reflectivity of the metal, which helps the viewer see the image more clearly through the glass. Carpeted flooring softens the atmosphere of the room, in tune with hushed lighting and dark colors. A sense of sadness is present without even seeing the photographs. An oversized sticky note, part of the Art is Therapy exhibition by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong, meditates on the melancholy of the photographs: “This is one of the saddest rooms in the museum. You may want to cry…Everyone here was once alive and now they are dead.”

Yet this sticky note, along with the atmosphere of the gallery, over-dramatizes the romantic qualities of the medium. Stating its sadness destroys the experience for the viewer as it places an emotion in their bodies before they can formulate it themselves. The placement of the boxes also contributes to this lack of personal interaction. While eye-level boxes bring the objects right to our eyes, daguerreotypes were not made to be viewed this way. They were meant to be cradled in the hands, for the shoulders to hunch and the body to curl over the object, forming a closed circuit—a private, intimate moment. Of course, a museum cannot allow visitors to touch and degrade the objects, but perhaps a lower placement along with a small curtain over the box that is to be lifted and peered under would create a closer experience to what was intended by their creation. If viewers can experience the power of the medium for themselves, they don’t need to be told what to think. Daguerreotypes gain their haunting intrigue by the understanding that the sitters are now, despite their stunningly alive appearance, dead. The intersection of this other exhibition, these philosophers’ musings in Art is Therapy, demeans the emotional ability of the viewer to realize that obvious fact on their own. It is utterly obvious, but gains its provocative power by being something that isn’t said, something that is whispered in the mind silently and powerfully. Botton and Armstrong take away the visitor’s ownership—their possession—of their own emotional experience with the medium. They smooth over the entire gallery in a romantic sadness that covers up the much darker history of daguerreotypes.

The museum ignores the relationship between daguerreotypes and colonialism despite cognitively creating this connection through the location of the gallery. Gallery 1.16 comes immediately after Gallery 1.17, titled, “Javanese Officials,” showing art and ephemera from the era of Dutch colonialism in modern day Indonesia. During this period, Dutch colonists possessed an entire people. The daguerreotype is a way of possessing a person, of holding their extraordinarily real presence in your hands. One cannot help but feel that the two are connected. Yet the museum gives no comment, no transition from the violent possession of the Javanese people to the bourgeoisie snapshots of loved ones. Even more disturbing is that, despite the connection established to colonialism by placement of the gallery, the museum ignores the role of daguerreotypes in the work of Louis Agassiz on polygenism in the mid-19^th century. The scientist used numerous daguerreotypes of African slaves to demonstrate the theory that claimed different evolutionary origins for different races of man, endowing unequal attributes upon each—scientific racism. This theory was directly fueled by colonialism, from which scientists would be given flagrant and exaggerated accounts of native cultures, casting them as a wholly unrelated ‘other.’ For the Rijksmuseum to gloss over the pivotal role daguerreotypes played in developing this theory, despite it being directly related to colonialism and a gallery of Dutch colonial art immediately preceding, is confusing and irresponsible.

            In Gallery 1.16, the Rijksmuseum creates a connection on which it doesn’t follow through. It solemnly conveys the fragility of life within a daguerreotype, but coddles the viewer by hiding the harsher truths behind the medium. Hopefully, curators at the museum can work in the future to truly embody what they claim to convey: the preciousness of all life, past and present, and the glinting beauty of all human beings.

Alain de Botton at the Rijksmuseum: Therapy or Vexation?

(picture from martenbrante.com)

For an exhibition entirely made up of oversized yellow post-it notes, Art Is Therapy by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong attracts a fair amount of attention at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The concept is straightforward: the two philosophers comment on 150 objects and spaces in the Rijksmuseum including artworks and objects in the cafe or entrance. Their thoughts are printed on giant post-it notes placed hung right next to the object being discussed. The goal is to introduce novel ways to perceive art's therapeutic effects, and many of the post-its do succeed in tearing down the viewers' limited perception of beauty. In other cases, however, the philosophers' musings sound so didactic they turn out to have the opposite effect: instead of opening up new opinions on art, the notes infantalize all visitors by dictating how they ignorant they are about art appreciation and how they should improve themselves by listening to de Botton and Armstrong's wisdom.

The first part of the exhibition that hit museum-goers is the large "ART IS THERAPY" display above the entrance of the Rijksmuseum, a light neon-green sign that disconnects with the museum's nineteenth-century grandeur but might appeal to visitors who enjoy a modern spin on the severe facade. 

Once visitors enter the museum, the notes are found everywhere -- next to artworks, besides staircases or in the main hall. All of them have the same format that begins with the philosopher's generalization about what is wrong with the museum's caption or the visitor's opinion of the artwork. The paragraph then goes on with a piece of advice authoritatively dispensed by the de Botton or Armstrong, and finally closes by reiterating the "sickness" with which all museum-goers are inflicted. For example, next to van der Kooi's "Piano Practice Interrupted" is the following instruction from Art is Therapy:

"Try to stop worrying about who painted this and when. What's good about this work is primarily the enchanting human dynamics at play. The older boy, delighting in the antics of the little brother, is torn between disciplining him and goading him on. But the child's naughtiness is motivated by nothing worse than a desire to engage the attention of a much loved - and eminently lovable -- sensible older sister.
Ordinary human experience is all we need in order to get to the heart of this work. But, unfortunately, we have tended to hold ourselves back from such projective exercises. We tell ourselves that unless we know the artist, the dates and the stylistic influences, we should keep quiet and study the catalogue. […]

SICKNESS
What year was this painted in?"

Excuse me? "We tell ourselves that unless we know the artist, the dates and the stylistic influences, we should keep quiet and study the catalogue"? Who are "we"? The authors behind Art is Therapy seem to be talking to a group of visitors who are imagined to be subservient slaves to the museum's facts about an artwork and hence incapable of having their own interpretation of it. De Botton and Armstrong probably meant to dispel the common impulse to formally analyze a painting based on its period or genre, which is a valuable project, but because their tone is so teacher-like, it turns readers off. They also assumed that some basic information about the date and artist of a painting would immediately color the way one views it, which is not entirely true. A viewer could have perfect knowledge about the tradition to which an artwork belongs and still form an emotional response independent of those facts. 

Another example is the following note next to Rembrandt's "The Jewish Bride" in which the biblical couple Isaac and Rebeca is seen in an intimate and private moment:

"The warmth and quietness of their love for one another, even though neither is especially attractive or particularly accomplished by the standards of the world, is shocking, as well as deeply moving. Outstanding though this is, it is a picture that is geared to produce an ambivalent reaction. We delight in it, yet -- at the same time -- feel regret. We don't live up to the beauty of the picture. We have too often been mean, angry, curt with the person we love; or we catch our breath with a sigh because so little of this loyal, tender devotion has come our way. Rembrandt illuminates, with painful accuracy, our lack: we don't have nearly enough genuine love in our lives and in our world. […]

SICKNESS
My problems are impatience, selfishness, unkindness. I rarely put my arm around my spouse."

Yet another assumption about how all of us are filled with vices and in search for a cure at the Rijksmuseum. It might be true that many viewers get the same notes of envy and regret from the painting the way the authors described. But it is important to also take in account visitors who might interpret the work simply as one of Rembrandt's commissioned paintings that celebrates (as opposed to mourning the lack of) intimate love. Since the idea of the artist is nearly always postulated, visitors have the liberty to read the painting however way they want to instead of being talked at as if they were mental health patients being diagnosed with "impatience, selfishness, unkindness."

(picture from theguardian.com)

The analyses in Art is Therapy are often thoughtful and well-intentioned yet due to their holier-than-thou attitude, they end up alienating people who have a strong idea about why they go to museums and prefer not to be babysat by self-help book authors. The director of the Rijksmuseum who invited de Botton to put his Art as Therapy book to practice expected the viewers to be either delighted or appalled, having anticipated a divisive reaction. Both de Botton and the Rijksmuseum director wanted to propagate the idea that high art does not have be just for "art's sakes" but applicable to our presumably problematic life. This theory about art being a self-improvement tool could have been executed better. The ubiquity of the notes makes the voices of de Botton and Armstrong way too loud amid the tranquil air of the overall museum, making the supposedly therapeutic captions more in-your-face than they should be. In response to criticism, De Botton argued:

"My view is that there is absolutely no danger of viewers having to follow the captions I offer them. If they don’t like them, they need only turn their head away. So the idea that I am coercing the viewer is madness, I am merely whispering into the ear of those who want to hear."

Since de Botton's whispers take the form of oversized post-it notes, it is hard to imagine them as anything but the proud chanting of a lecturer who believes his opinion has the ability to transform and convert listeners. In the room reserved for daguerrotype photographs, a post-it prominently featured but the entrance announces, "This is one of the saddest rooms in the museum […]" How could a viewer build up her own perception of these early photographs when the first thing crammed into her head was a definitive value judgment as such? The fact that these subjects passed away does not automatically lead to responses in the line of melancholia or loss. It could a perfect reason to cherish photography as an effective medium to immortalize life. De Botton may not be explicitly coercing anybody but his captions definitely prime and affect many viewers, especially when they come in catchy, large and light-yellow post-its.

The Guardian mirthlessly concludes, "Botton's evangelising and his huckster's sincerity make him the least congenial gallery guide imaginable." The article even points out, "Ideally, [de Botton] envisages museums reorganised according to therapeutic functions – with a basement of suffering, leading upwards to a gallery of self-knowledge on the top floor. It's like Dante's circles of hell." It really is a bit harsh to compare De Botton's vision to Dante's inferno, but it is clear that Art is Therapy is forced upon those who hate it. The project also comes with an app, audio guide and catalogue for sale, and therefore might seem even more overbearing with its commercial and multimedia shebang. If only Art is Therapy was carried out more graciously and less high-handedly, maybe with fewer commentaries or more playful notes, the vision of art is a therapeutic tool might have been appreciated by many more people. For now, it shall have to withstand scathing reviews like that of a Dutch reporter on the Volkskrant, "the exhibition Art Is Therapy is an insult three times over: for museums, for the works of art and above all for the visitor who is addressed as a childish victim and is not encouraged to look or to think." Yikes. 

The Depths of Trouw

            On the night of Friday, September fifth, Wiley introduced me to the world of Trouw. A world famous club known far and wide to the underground, Trouw is a club lover’s dark fantasy. The endless winding line of eager night animals hinted at the prowess of the DJ behind the decks that night. Jooris Voorn is born and raised in the Netherlands and currently resides in Amsterdam. Given that he has gained a massive following worldwide, his set for the home crowd held that much more potency. His productions consist of what is commonly referred to as a blend of Tech House and Detroit Techno. For those who aren’t particularly familiar with the sub genres of electronic music, these sounds carry a strong “four on the floor” bass-line with ambient underscores, stabbing samples, and futuristic “tech” inherent soundscapes. It is a sound fitting for a certain environment and mood, and this is where Trouw thrives. The club sports a world class sound-system found in other famous clubs like Berghain in Berlin and Output in Brooklyn. Tony Andrews, the founder of Funktion-One speaks of Dance music’s success being built upon bass and the fact that we have only had it pouring out of our speakers in an aurally pleasing way for the past several decades. It was formally only heard in “hazardous situations—for example, when thunder struck, or an earthquake shook, or from explosions caused by dynamite or gunpowder. That is probably why it is by far the most adrenaline-inducing frequency that we have.” This right here is the excitement factor…the allure involved with dance music, and techno in particular. It is why people wait in these long lines at such late hours in the night to get lost in the music.

            While it may sound like an ork breeding ground from some Lord of the Rings movie, Trouw proved to be every bit exciting and fulfilling as I had built it up to be. Upon finally being let in off of the seemingly endless line at around 2:30 am, we entered an underground area that seemed eerily and enjoyably familiar to the newspaper printworks it used to be. It gave off a potent yet casual message of we are here for the music, not for bottle service and thousand euro cover charges. The low frequencies of the impending bass-lines oozed out of the first floor room. With the come here motion of the forefinger it leads you in to the dark energy of everything that is techno. Brick pillars, minimal lighting, and ample space shaped an interesting atmosphere to smile, dance, and close you eyes amongst an ebbing and moving sea of like-minding others while being shrouded in darkness and frequencies. The room was outstanding, yet it wasn’t Joris Voorn. The best was yet to come and it was only a spiral staircase away. Interestingly enough, the sounds from each floor didn’t bleed into one another, which is an extremely important quality for a clubber when two sets occur in the same building.

            We made the journey to the main dance-floor to find a large-narrow room (relevant to its length) packed to the gills with dancing bodies. We danced while moving forward, irresistibly taking part in everything that was happening around us. Finally finding real estate behind the DJ booth, we looked up to the scene of the faces of the mass of people we had just waded through. We were above and behind the DJ booth, looking right through a spiral assortment of purple neon tube lights hanging above the crowd. To be part of an audience and be above and behind the DJ booth is something I have never experienced and something that is very rare to see in the United States. Jooris Voorn is very well respected, but he is not held up and observed like some ridiculously inflated celebrity. He produces music to make people happy and to transport them from existence while they dance their souls out. He doesn’t do it to stand above and beyond everyone else that is solely responsible for making him successful. Instead he is on level and among the audience. It is a give and take of passion that occurs at Trouw. It is all about the music and the good vibes, not about the celebrity and the flaunting of wealth and power. To this effect they strongly embrace the "what happens in Trouw, stays in Trouw" ethos with their no photos policy. I was entranced by everything about it, and couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy for the Europe club atmosphere. Why can’t it be more like this in the US, where it has instead become known for over-crowded dance-floors filled with sweaty, drugged-out dancer who “live for the drop?” It is unfair to criticize, but I have been to more than a few shows, and my niche lies in the Trouw scene, where music and environment comes before drugs, money, and celebrity DJ’s. It is no coincidence that trouw translates from Dutch to English as “loyalty." While I did gain a sense of loyalty to this wondrous playground of techno, sadly it will be closing at the end of the year for undisclosed reasons.On to the next journey and the next club to immerse myself in. Hopefully Berghain is in my future next fall!

The Science Center Nemo's Rooftop Terrace

The stairs up to the Nemo terrace

A Bird's Eye View

A long staircase directs the visitor up twenty-two meters to the Science Center Nemo's sloping rooftop terrace, offering a beautiful bird's-eye view of Amsterdam and the Ij River. The terrace consists of broad, slowly ascending steps that lead up to the museum café, which is situated at the back. The ascent is a progression---upwards, of course, but also a progression in sights and sounds.  

The Progression of Sights and Sounds 

After climbing up the long stairway and setting foot on the terrance, you are greeted by a cluster of white park benches and groups of tall Miscanthus plants in gray, six by three foot rectangular pots. The first ten steps leads to the base of a waterfall fountain that elegantly hugs the terrace steps like a river. A few more steps and you see a dozen scattered reclining park chairs painted in pastel green and milky-white. A few brightly-clothed visitors are relaxing and enjoying the view as pigeons aggressively peck at bread crumbs and fend off one another with surprising hostility.

Take twenty more steps and you finds yourself nearly at the top of the terrace. As you move upwards, the sights and sounds grow in diversity: the benches and potted plants at the base of the terrace are also here at the top, but they are now interspersed with other colorful playthings. Children gather around two life-sized "Connect Four" game sets that pops out of the scenery with their bright red and blue plastic frames.  There are four table displays featuring different puzzles and brain teasers including "Tanagram" and "Summing Squares." The very top of the terrance, where the café seating begins features a beautiful life-sized chess board with two-foot tall chess pieces. The tranquility at the base of the terrace transitions into the gleeful shouts of children and lively chatter from within the café.

There were a few games on the terrace for children to play with

Yearning For More Color

The Nemo rooftop is very peaceful and has similar qualities to a park square, spacious and speckled with seating areas and greenery. The terrace's large expanse of gray concrete is reminiscent of the gray cobblestones of Dam Square or Rembrantplein. The spaciousness welcomes people to occupy the area and bring it to life. However, the difference is that the Nemo rooftop has far fewer visitors than Dam Square. While the squares and parks of Amsterdam are often bustling with visitors and vivified by street performers, the Nemo is fairly empty---no more than forty adults and children played, wandered, and relaxed on this terrace at a time. For the two hours I was here, enjoying the view and making observations, I noted that most visitors who came to the Nemo rooftop only wandered around for about five minutes---a few girlfriends posing as their boyfriends took photos of them by the waterfall fountain---before leaving. Granted, I visited the rooftop on a cloudy day after a morning of light rain; it is very possible that the Nemo terrace is revitalized on sunny days when the sun beckons visitors climb up the Nemo's stairway to come closer to the sun.

Lots of concrete steps, dotted with some color in the distance

Overall, this creates an ambiance that is peaceful, but one that still feels oddly barren. The rare few bright red children's playthings (e.g. the "Connect Four" game) popped out from the plain concrete steps and is a reminder of how empty the rest of the terrace is. The game reminds the visitor that there could be more color. The potted plants remind the visitor that there wasn't enough greenery, and gives the terrace a moody-gray and lackluster vibe. The empty reclining chairs and picnic benches reminded the visitor that there aren't enough people on the rooftop to create a lively atmosphere. The scene is reminiscent of a big city, such as New York, where the "Connect Four" games are metaphors for the bright and out-of-place city playgrounds that are wedged within a menacingly dominant concrete jungle of skyscrapers. 

The beautiful green facade of the Science Center Nemo

Jade Green Versus Muddy-Brown and Gray

A science center with such gorgeous jade-green exterior of curved walls sets expectations for a similar abundance of lush green plants of on the rooftop. As such, the brown-yellow Miscanthus plants and the gray concrete created a muddy ambiance that generated a small feeling of disappointment. The sloping step-wise architecture combined with the waterfall fountain is pleasant, but the space needs more color. Perhaps the steps could be painted an array of colors, or mosaics could be installed on the ground. Perhaps the garden landscapers could add more plants and flowers. The possibilities are endless and some changes are very simple: the benches and chairs could be painted bright colors instead of their current lifeless white and bland pale-green. Pale, pastel colors aren't always a negative trait, but it simply doesn't match the colorful plastic children's games. As it is, the colorful "Connect Four" simply sticks out like a sore thumb, reminding visitors of the other colors that are lacking. 

Lackluster chairs

A Discovery

While the bland concrete of the terrace is uninspiring, the two hours I spend there gives me time to really engage my senses. I notice the ambient sound all around me. Sitting at a picnic bench, I hear the rushing of cars from the highway below, the shouts of children as they played games, the murmuring of tourists, the cooing of pigeons, the gurgling of the fountain, the bouncing of plastic boys, and the gentle flapping of Nemo's colorful flags. The intermingling of these sounds create an ideal atmosphere for work (the studious, take note!) There was a richness in sound that was subtle, but gave life to the terrace despite the lack of a crowd and the lack of interesting visual elements. Although there is certainly room for improvement, the Nemo rooftop terrace is still an enjoyable, relaxing place to work or simply sip a cup of tea, while drinking in the views of the city. 

A Tale of Two Siblings: Critique of Tarikh and Ziarah at the Fringe Festival

          On Monday, September 8^th Tarikh and Ziarah, a sibling dance theater troop, performed a drama titled “Metmijgaathetgoed.” The show was entirely in Dutch, making it a tad bit difficult for the English speakers in the audience (such as myself) to understand exactly what was occurring in the performance. However, there were other fascinating features, such as facial and body gestures, the use of multi-media, the involvement of the audience, and the combinations between dance and drama aspects, that enhanced the performance and rendered it enjoyable.

            Before describing the performance, I must present a depiction of the space. The most striking detail of the venue was the proximity between the audience and the performers. The benches where the crowd sat were practically on the stage, and there were (physically) no barriers to performance. As I found out later, this closeness greatly facilitated the artist-crowd interactions. The benches themselves were extremely artsy, adorned with red, yellow, and grey cloth that exhibited different letters, chopped up and mashed together in diverse ways. These benches presented a kind of optical illusion to the eyes, and were both pleasing to view and difficult to comprehend. A black curtain surrounded the space, significantly contributing to a black-box feel and amplifying the intimacy of the event. The stage was dimly lit, and was incredibly simplistic: a wooden bench was situated in the foreground, a photograph of Tarikh hung in the back, and props were scattered randomly on a miniature table next to the bench. The back wall was adorned with plain white tiles, which also added to ideas of cleanliness and simplicity. All these factors described above put me at ease, and allowed me to feel an intimate connection with the performers (despite me not speaking Dutch).

            The performance began with Tarikh walking on stage towards the picture of him, set to Gregorian chant. This was a comical introduction, and the audience laughed a great deal as Tarikh exalted himself. As the audience laughed, Tarikh glanced back with an amused look on his face. This gaze towards the crowd of laughers established the connection between the audience and actors, and signified that these interactions would be important aspects of the performance. This initial scene also set up the notion that comedy would play an integral role, and that the audience would laugh to a great extent throughout the play. After this, Tarikh dove into his opening monologue, whipping the audience into a hysterical frenzy with his words. As I was not able to understand what he was saying, his monologue did not have the same effect on me. However, it was extremely aesthetically pleasing to watch him perform. He exhibited a powerful look, and his eyes pierced the audience as he spoke. His facial and body features seemed to match perfectly what he was saying, and allowed me to understand somewhat the subject matter being discussed (sex). He moved around the stage naturally and established a commanding stage presence, rendering it difficult to take my eyes off him. He spoke with a clear diction, and his words seemed to roll off his tongue, evidence that he had practiced a great deal. This amped up his credibility as a performer, a development that was much appreciated.

            After a short while, Ziarah entered the picture sporting short jean shorts, a long sleeve pink shirt that left her midriff exposed, and incredibly tall high heels. Her hands on her hips, she walked with an air or authority and a touch of sassiness, like she knew she was a big deal. She approached the photo of Tarikh and laughed, signaling that she was not above making fun of her older brother in some capacity. They exchanged barbs for a while, with Ziarah matching Tarikh in her confidence and stage presence. About halfway through, Ziarah broke into an incredibly passionate and enthralling contemporary dance. The transition between the acting drama and the dance was seamless, and provided a remarkable contrast to what had been occurring. She gracefully floated around stage, and crafted a series of high octane, intensively athletic moves: leaps, jumps, skips, flips, and the like. The stage lights dimmed as she danced, and consequently one could see the outline of her performance on the while tiles. This was a beautiful effect, as the power of her dance coincided with the elegance of the purely white tiles. As she performed, Tarikh sat on the bench off to the side, allowing Ziarah to have her moment. This was a subtle, but a valued action, as it allowed me to focus on Ziarah and not get distracted by Tarikh’s actions. It showed that he was a true performer, and that he understood the principle of letting others have their moments.

            Other attention-grabbing aspects of the performance followed. Two songs with English lyrics were played over the audio speakers; in fact, all the songs played were in English, while all the dialogue amongst the performers, and between the performers and the audience, was all in Dutch. This was quite the jarring occurrence, as it may have made more sense for all of the performance to be in Dutch. Nevertheless, I relished these opportunities, as I could understand what the lyrics meant. Three times, Tarikh directly spoke with members of the audience and had them answer questions. Luckily, he did not speak to me (it would have been extremely awkward for me to explain that I didn’t speak Dutch!). These audience interactions elicited more laughter from the crowd, and I myself found myself amused at the brevity of the answers the embarrassed viewers gave. Towards the end of the performance, the stage crew played a power point presentation, showcasing the performers when they were younger and their family. It was a touching moment, and was followed by a slow dance set to jazz between the two siblings. While I couldn’t understand what was going on, the power point together with the subdued dance aroused powerful emotions, and I could feel the intensity of the moment. Tarikh suddenly moved towards the back, the stage lit up the brightest it had all night, and then went to black. With that, the show ended to glorious applause and standing ovations from the crowd.

            While the subject matter was not understandable due to the language barrier, I greatly enjoyed the performance. It was clear that the siblings were incredibly talented in their crafts, and witnessing them perform their art was a joy. The choices they made, in terms of dancing, audience interaction, and the use of multi-media, greatly contributed to the performance, and added an extra layer of quality. The performance was a rousing success, and I would recommend anyone to see them live (even if you don’t speak Dutch).

Jackson Pollock - Reflection of the Big Dipper

Wiley Webb 
          September 5, 2014 // Amsterdam Trans-Idiomatic Arts Practicum

Jackson Pollock - Reflection of the Big Dipper 

       1947, Paint on canvas, 111x92cm // Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam  

My edit history (of late-ness): 

     3:28pm Friday - submitted photos + all but last paragraph

4:02pm Friday - finished writing last paragraph

9:52am Saturday - better organised and resized photos, added edit history

Pictured: three CoBrA works

As I walked through the vibrantly coloured, tribally rough, aggressively textured work of Appel, Constant, Jorn, and other artists from the 1948-51 movement in European art called CoBrA, a different type of painting boldly peeked through the next doorway. Pollock’s “Reflection of the Big Dipper” was a clear outlier, an outsider among its completely European gallery companions, and pulled me strongly into the next room. 

     Stedelijk’s placement of the Pollock painting made sense; there was a clear progression from the more figurative CoBrA works to the more abstract CoBrA works where material was the subject (see above photos).  Despite being created before most of the preceding CoBrA pieces, “Reflection of the Big Dipper” functioned as an ending point to this section of the gallery. This anachronism is appropriate because this early Pollock work is almost the ultimate realisation of abstract expressionism and a tough act to follow (at least on those terms - the gallery continues with an entirely different movement: cubism). 

     This was not the first time I’ve seen a Pollock in person but it was the first time I’ve really experienced one; the lack of crowds allowed me to selfishly spend a long time in front of the painting and the lack of a proximity rope fence allowed me to get very close to the painting’s surface. This closeness let me almost breath in, smell, and notice the incredible three dimensionality of the paint; I never before knew dimension to be such an important component of Pollock’s work, which we will discuss shortly. When the painting entirely contained my peripheral vision, I would dare call the experience “spiritual”, even though a Pollock work is less explicitly designed to elicit this reaction than, say, a Rothko. 

      Formally, immersion in Pollock’s wild expressions of lines and galaxies of splatters elicits this spiritual experience. When close to the piece, I felt like I was one of many particles of Pollock’s nebulae. Compared to other works of Abstract Expressionism, I found it natural to let this canvas become my reality. If a work of art is easily comprehensible, you “get it” and consequently, in your mind, the work can be easily thought of and distinguished from your own self. It is a separate entity that exists there, on the museum wall, and your emotional and intellectual experience of it is very much confined to the thing. That experience may still be profound and beautiful, but it is not “spiritual” because it it restricted to the material thing, requiring the constant external influence of the physical piece. 

     In contrast, I really struggled to separate myself from “Reflection of the Big Dipper”, to merely look away, whip out my phone, and jot down notes. The experience of the painting had infiltrated my personal experience and now, retrospectively, I realise that I was quite uncomfortable with the fact that I didn’t have thoughts “about the painting” but more “of the painting”. Pollock’s visual language briefly became the only language I knew; there was a particular moment, the first time where I pulled away from the painting to write thoughts down, where I legitimately failed to remember English. This is similar to that brief moment of mental uncertainty and in-between when one is switching between spoken languages. When “in” the painting, I thought in terms of line, blob, splatter, brush stroke, drip, and colour. That type of immersion is why I use the word “spiritual” to describe my experience, because “Reflection of the Big Dipper” was wonderfully, surprisingly, and uncomfortably internal. 

     This painting naturally becomes one’s reality because it is incomprehensible; the chaotic mixture of lines, splatter, and colour defies any sort of neat organisation or method of “packaging” it into smaller components which one’s mind can retain and remember. This chaos closely approximates the beautiful unpredictability and deterministic randomness of the natural world. The beauty of this work is that it is reminiscent of nature on varying size scales from the largest: galaxy clusters, galaxies, and nebula, to the smallest: bacteria, atomic collision graphs, etcetera. Thus “Reflection of the Big Dipper” is fractal, and indeed on closer inspection  one notices that Pollock’s splatters have smaller splatters within them, that his lines have smaller lines accompanying them. The artist likely achieved this not through explicit planning but through natural physical gestures (to create natural-looking forms) repeated several times with different levels of energy (to reproduce those same forms at different scales).
      One both consciously and unconsciously notices Pollock’s progressively growing energy and intensity over the course of painting “Reflection of the Big Dipper”. After the “oldest” thick, calm brush strokes of burgundy, green, and silver come more intense, thinner strokes of blue, orange, yellow, and other colours, where Pollock’s brush begins to skip and bounce of the canvas. The visual pace becomes more visually piercing and emotionally evocative with strong stabs of white “comets” that have very long, very straight tails and thick, three dimensional heads. Their strong linearity is contrasted and infected by purple and yellow, which Pollock applied as spritzes/splatters without any sense of “stroke”. Finally, non-viscous black, applied with line-splatter hybrid strokes, sits boldly, defiantly on top.
     It is very difficult to analyse the importance of individual components of Pollock’s diverse visual vocabulary here, especially because “Reflection of the Big Dipper” is one of his earliest drip-style paintings, where he leaned more towards pure chaos before discovering more harmonious “meaningful” forms in his more mature work. Yet for all its chaos, this painting has a few “rules of physics”. The black and white sit in front of the more chaotic, colourful bed; they had the most clearly defined shape and most powerfully shaped my experience. The space around the black line-splatters and white comets around the edges of the canvas is essential to accentuating their “collisions” (of extra-splattery black) in the centre of the canvas. The black lines gracefully extend to the edges of the canvas, conveying their fast, swirling motion and consequently your eye is caught following their powerful paths.
     My eye found nowhere to comfortably rest, contributing to the immersive effect of the piece. However, the straightness of the white comet tails provided key moments, not of “rest”, but at least of “orientation” - lines by which to orient my sense of direction and briefly halt my eye’s relentless movement. Importantly though, they sit somewhere in the middle of the painting’s production and their linear “pureness” is viciously interrupted by splatters - a strong vote for the painting’s ultimate “organic-ness”. But, in short, Pollock’s chaos is beautifully immersive, strong, and inescapable.