**If you want us to send this to you, just shoot us a message with your email.

Thanks for your interest in the Greenhouse Arts Project!  Before you decide to become a member of our Agency, there is some information you need about what we can do for you and what we need from you to make it possible.  As you read about the benefits and requirements of membership, please remember that the primary goal of our project is to provide you with a successful and marketable portfolio.  Once complete, we can use it together to promote and sell your work throughout the community, and perhaps even around the world.  No one can guarantee how successful your art career will eventually be, but huge potential exists and you need to be ready for it!  This agency is about professional development, so we ask a lot of our artists, but your work enables us to do our job.

 

Benefits of Membership

 

One-on-one Consultation

 

You will be assigned an experienced agent who will help guide you toward reaching your goals.  Consultation will include portfolio and artist's statement development, an individual marketing plan, critiques, and a discussion about which aspects of your work are of interest to customers and collectors.  Remember that we also consult our business clients, who are searching for the right artwork to meet their needs.  The more we know about you and your mission as an artist, the better we can match you with buyers who will appreciate your pieces and want to see more of your work.  

 

24 Hour Promotion

 

You will be provided with a page in our online gallery where your work can be seen and purchased at any time, directly from the website.  Our live video stream is in development and will be online by the time our office opens in October.  This stream comprises video art, artist profiles, portfolios, music videos by agency bands, performance art and promotional videos for businesses that support our artists.  This stream will be viewable on our website, as well as on flat screen televisions in our gallery's windows, at all times.  The option exists to make the stream available to other venues as well.

 

The Greenhouse Gallery

 

Our bricks and mortar location at 1124 Bardstown Road will host rotating exhibits and special events that feature only agency artists.  Clients visiting the gallery can view high quality images of your work on our projector and learn more about our artists.

 

Professional Services

 

The relationship the Greenhouse Arts Project has with its artists goes beyond just selling art.  We can also market services, such as photography, writing, editing, graphic design, welding, etc. that artists need and artists can provide.  This is a benefit to our artists whether they receive or perform the service.  Other benefits, such agency health insurance and access to credit unions for our artists, are currently at various stages of development.

 

Networking

 

Our website aims to provide agency members with the ability to easily communicate with us and other artists, post blogs, moderate critiques, participate in forums and discussions, and upload news and event postings that are pertinent to our agency community.  The agency will also host events that bring all of our artists together to meet each other, talk about art, and just have fun!

 

 

 

Requirements

 

Fees

 

Agency membership currently costs $25 a month for a minimum of three months, but this may have to increase in the future for any of a number of reasons.  You are welcome to join at the introductory rate for as long as you would like, but payment is due when signing up.

 

Images

 

In order to effectively market and promote your work, we need an image or images of each and every piece you list with us. Specifically, we require 300dpi .jpg format files made from well-lit photos that are in focus and from a proper angle to best show the work.  The easiest way to meet this requirement is to put the files on a CD or DVD and send it to or drop it off at our office, but we can work with you if you need to supply the files in some other way.  Image quality must be approved to finalize your membership, but once you are a member updating your portfolio is easy as long as you keep providing us with the same high-quality images.

 

Video

 

Though not required, we highly recommended that you provide us with a 30-90 second video of you, your artistic process, or whatever you think potential collectors of your work need to see. This complements our unique marketing and sales program, which is geared directly toward promoting your work and advancing your career.  If you need a videographer or editor, another agency member can contract with you to do the work.

 

Inventory List

 

Our basic inventory list includes title, media, dimensions, asking price and shipping weight.  This will make purchasing your work either in person or online easy for your customers.  It also allows us to see what is available for shows in different venues.  You are responsible for ensuring the immediate availability of the works you chose to list with us and must keep us updated BEFORE any changes are made to your inventory.

 

Artist's Statement

 

Yes...  Everyone needs one!  Sorry, no matter how progressive the art or artist, this is still a standard requirement for any professional. 

 

Consultation

 

After your application materials have been submitted, the final step is to schedule an interview with Shannon.  We need to get to know you and learn about your creative focus, goals as an artist and portfolio.  This allows us to create a personalized plan for your career and see what areas you need help in.  This also presents an opportunity for you to learn about us and ask any questions you may have about your contract or any other aspect of our service.

 

GOOD LUCK and SPREAD THE WORD!

 

We're looking forward to working with you!  And remember, we're here to help you every step of the way, so if you have any questions about the project or the application process, please don't hesitate to contact us.  Keep in mind that the specific services mentioned in this document are contingent upon technical feasibility, and cost effectiveness, so the eventual outcome may differ slightly from what is described herein.

Today, June 11, 2008, after a satisfying period of quiet reflect en lue of epic destruction and sadness within the Louisville artistic community, Greenhouse Arts Project is about to harvest the fruits of some much needed labor. We have recently acquired an office/retail/media-center, right next door to Karma Cafe, across from the Speedway on Grinstead and Bardstown Rd.located at:

Greenhouse Arts Project
1124 Bardstown Rd.
Louisville, KY 40204

We believe that the surrounding artistic community is the underlining reason that Louisville is a creative hub for progressive thinkers and visionaries. Our network will serve as an exhibiting, promoting,and marketing tool, as well as an agency, consultation, and event planning service. Our mission, is for local business to support local art, and vise-versa. This project is lead by artists, innovators, and entrepreneurs, that have a voice, a dream, a spirit, and a need to communicate. Please help us to make our network and portfolio as rich and authentically cool as possible.

Right now, we're in the best part. The "get-your-hands-dirty" part. There is a lot of work internally to do before our official GRAND RE-OPENING...which, I'm not ready to estimate specifically, yet, but in a couple of months.In the meantime I would love absolutely any thoughts or opinions on how a concept like this could really be functional as well as valuable for YOU.


*I'll be updating this site as much as possible until our wed-site is up and running; providing more information as it comes.

*I need for people to ask me as many questions as possible, so that I can be good at answering as many questions as possible. So please, please, help me open the doors of communication.

*This product service is not limited to Artists, Benefactors, Sponsors, or Doners in the Louisville area. The physical space directly markets the local Louisville consumers, however our streaming video feature and web presence market our customers to the entire world.

Well, not really, but Georgetown, Malaysia sure feels like it to me, as anyone who knows me or has been following my blog for the past couple of years knows. Things change, of course, and this wonderful spot is no different. Since I was last here, my favorite crummy dive of a hotel, the Oasis, closed down, and the little kid I first met while he helped out in his parents’ liquor store cum neighborhood bar (which is the best bar in town, by the way) back in 2002 has grown up, gotten married and has a kid on the way.

There are new art venues, too, and the ones that were here before still are and are as good as or better than ever. The Pinang State Art Gallery has been around for a while, but I somehow missed it before, making it new to me. The permanent collection is in an odd state currently, with a poster near the entrance stating that renovations ’began’ from November to December of last year, the entrance from the second level locked and the entrance from the third level open, but leading only to a space full of artworks sitting on the floor, propped against the wall. Perhaps this is some new avant-garde curatorial technique, but as I am not sure what is going on, I will leave it at that.

The Exhibition Gallery on the ground floor, on the other hand, is open for business as usual, and hosted a show entitled "The Colours of Spring" during my visit. A better title would have been "The Spring Malaysian Chinese Watercolor Show," as the only unifying theme of the collected works is that they are all watercolors painted by Chinese Malaysians. Even this moniker would be slightly misleading, considering the use of the word ’spring’ in a spot where the high temperature is about 30 degrees Celsius year-round at a time when other places in the northern hemisphere that do have seasons are almost uniformly still caught in the grip of cold winter weather.

These facts notwithstanding, the show proved to be a good way to spend an afternoon. The majority of the paintings depicted typical scenes of life on Penang, mostly here in Georgetown, but also in the villages and beaches which dot the island. Flowers and nature scenes make up the majority of the rest of the show, and this is perhaps where the ’spring’ bit comes in.

Most of the works were purely representational, but a few had elements of impressionism, expressionism, and even cubism. In fact, the only purely abstract work in the show was Simon Tan Siew Kuan’s 2007 "Life of Nature," which was done in earth tones (mostly green and brown) and perhaps reminiscent of trees atop a rock outcropping. Rocks would make sense, in light of two of his other works "Flow" and "Dancing With Nature" which were displayed alongside. Although impressionistic, both clearly evoked rocks rising from and interacting with water.

Perhaps the most interesting works also made use of western modern art techniques such as abstraction, cubism, and impressionism. Four such paintings by Cheng Yeow Chye were on display, all of them entitled "You Must Be Blissful." The works featured baskets or vases of flowers, and one also included a goldfish bowl set against a backdrop of gold and red carved woodwork characteristic of the homes of peranakan, or straits Chinese. The most interesting of the series, from 2004, featured a number of cubist vases against a colorful background, holding hibiscus and other flowers.

Continuing with the hibiscus theme was the appropriately titled 2008 work "Hibiscus" by Lau Seong Leng. This exquisitely executed painting depicted a group of the flowers in exacting detail.

The bulk of the exhibit comprised the aforementioned street scenes of life in Penang. One I kept turning back to was Lean Kim Lum’s "Street Scene," which I liked not for its style, but for its depiction of a little side street and the kedai tuak there where I have gone for years to buy palm wine (called ’tuak’ in Malaysian).

Another lesser-known attraction featured in the works "Campbell Street Market 05" and "Campbell Street Market 07," painted in 2005 and 2007, respectively, by Alex Leong. The poultry market depicted is not a typical tourist destination, especially in this time of worldwide paranoia about H5N1 bird flew, but it does happen to adjoin the compound where my friend Aji lives (see earlier blog post here, and below).

Ngo Teong Beng, on the other hand, seems to specialize in watercolors of local tourist attractions. Two works, "Armenian Street" and "Kapitan Keling Mosque" stood out. Both were brilliantly executed, and included all the details that make Georgetown so special for visitors, like the tea stalls and rickshaws.

Two street scenes that at first appeared to be of Georgetown upon closer inspection proved to depict locations half a world away. Dato’ Chuah Kooi Yong’s 2004 works "Spain I" and "Spain II" had a color scheme reminiscent of Georgetown’s colonial district, and the scenes themselves bore similarities as well, despite being set, obviously, in the streets of Spain.

My nominee for ’best in show’ validates my interest in photographing the distinctive, often crumbling patina of the old shophouses here, where many decades worth of layers of different paint, rust stains and other things have produced striking, chaotic patterns.  Khoo Khay Tat’s 2006 work "New Life" was a testament to this visual heritage.  It depicted a crack in the plaster of an old wall. At the top, the plaster had come away completely, revealing the brick beneath. At the center of the image, a plant had sprouted from the crack, its vibrant green contrasting with the ruddy brick and dull plaster.

Aji is still in town, and despite some personal problems last year, he is still painting his yoga and tai chi cats, as well as more of the sort of street and village scenes I saw at the Pinang State Art Gallery.  Some of his new works are on rice paper, giving the watercolors he uses a similar effect to the Rembrandt etchings on Japanese paper I wrote about just a few weeks ago.

Another fixture of the local arts scene, the alpha utara gallery continues to follow strength with strength.  At the time of my visit, there was not even a show on, but dozens of works by gallery artists (generally those who had a show there in the past) proved just as worthwhile as the curated events they put on.

Last year I wrote about shows by Eston Tan and E.H. Chee, and a few of the works from each that remain unsold were on display.  Reminiscent of Tan’s work in their impressionistic quality and liberal, almost sculptural use of oil paint were several works by Chong Hon Fatt.  Chong’s work differed in subject matter, consisting entirely of images from Georgetown and environs, including "A view from Butterworth," "Indian Temple, Queen St." (both from 2005) and 1998’s "Church, Burma Rd."

The outstanding paintings in the gallery, predictably, were those by the founder Khoo Sui Hoe.  "Balcony by the Lake" (1996) and "Balcony, Lake View" showed what appeared to be the same view of a lake and the far shore seen from a balcony with the sort of colorful ceramic balustrades which are a common feature of contemporary architecture in the region.  In the former, the sun has just risen or is about to set, and the image focuses on the interplay of light and water.  The latter view is at a different time of year and either earlier or later in the day, i.e. just before sunrise or after sunset, emphasizing the beautiful colors produced in the tropics at this magical time of day.

The third of the massive, and massively priced canvases, which measured at more than a square meter and cost RM65,000 (more than US$20,000) was titled "The Crescent Moon."  It depicted a similar scene of water and the shoreline, but without the balcony and with an island in the foreground.  It appears that as the crescent moon moved across the sky, Khoo painted it in intermittently as he worked on the rest of the canvas.

In addition to the paintings and drawings, a number of sculptures could be found as well.  Most of the works were pottery, with the most outstanding being the delicate stoneware teapots and vase by Lee Hsien Chin of Taiwan and the modernist bowl, vase, and dish by Singaporean Alvin Tan. 

Even more interesting were the welded, rusty scrap metal pieces by Indonesian Teguh Ostenrik.  The abstract "Touched down" evoked an old airplane, while "Dance my soul" resembled a figure dancing in ecstasy, depicted only from the waist up.  Ostenrik produced both works in 2007.

As I wrote last year, Georgetown, and Penang in general have something for almost everyone, and is already a world class destination for gourmands. The stalwarts of the local arts scene are still going strong, and although I had never before been in the Pinang State Art Gallery, even with its permanent collection apparently out of commission for the time being, it is yet another venue that is making this a world class stop for art lovers as well.

Joshua C. Robinson

jrobinson at riseup dot net

The Netherlands as a state came into being only in the middle of the last millenium, but by 1602 they had a foothold in Indonesia, where they soon came to rule over hundreds of different cultures, some of them dating to the stone age.  Of course, the small country has long since become a world leader in business, sport, art, culture, and technology, but it still maintains close ties with the more primitive cultures over which it formerly held sovereignty.  Two recent museum exhibits put this contrast into stark relief.

The first, 'Bisj Poles: Sculptures from the Rainforest,' is in place at the famous Tropenmuseum, the museum of the Royal Institute of the Tropics, until 13 April.  The main feature of the show is dozens of Asmat bisj poles from one of the most remote places on Earth, the far southeastern corner of the Indonesian province of Papua, which comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. 

It used to be the Dutch East Indies until a deeply flawed and profoundly unjust US-backed UN initiative handed the territory to Indonesia on the 'authority' of just over 1000 'tribal elders' who were plied with liquor and women and blackmailed with threats of violence by the Indonesians ahead of the 'vote' to integrate the colony into Indonesia. 

Since then, Indonesia and transnational corporations have abused and exploited the primitave cultures of the vast territory for its mineral and timber wealth, and simply for its lightly populated spaces, which are slowly being filled with transmigrants from other, overcrowded provinces within the huge archipelago nation. 

In recent years the Free Papua Movement has been struggling against the brutal US-armed Indonesian Army to establish the independent state of West Papua and reclaim control of their destiny.  While it may seem mad for a ragtag group of tribesmen armed with bows and arrows to battle a modern army equipped with American machine guns and fighter jets, they have not been defeated yet, which is surely due in no small part to the warrior tradition common to many of the peoples of New Guinea.

The Asmat have a reputation as some of the most feared warriors on the island, as well as some of the most artistic.  These two worlds came together to catapult the Asmat to international fame when American scion Michael C. Rockefeller disappeared in Asmat territory in November 1961 while on an expedition to collect tribal art in the region.  It is assumed by many that he ran afoul of the Asmat and fell victim to a headhunting raid, for which the tribe is as famous as it is for it artistic achievements.

The display of bisj poles in the Tropenmuseum brought together both the creative and destructive aspects of Asmat culture.  The poles are supreme examples of sculpture, but for the Asmat, their real value lies in the central role they play in complex rituals intended to free the spirits of members of the tribe that have been lost to headhunting raids. 

Taking the heads of members of other tribes is traditionally an important part of the bisj ritual, although the practice has allegedly been stopped through the intervention of western culture, which first reached the area in the 1950s, and Indonesian government control which was established in the following decades.  Other aspects of the rituals surrounding the bisj include dancing, singing and drumming, and the ceremonies culminate in the pole being transported into the jungle and left to rot, where it can be used as a canoe by the spirit(s) of the tribe's dead to sail into safan (the afterlife).

Bisj (also bis) poles are carved from single pieces of nutmeg tree trunks and can reach heights of more than 12 meters.  The motifs usually consist of human and animal figures standing atop one another, phallic symbols, and symbols representing canoe prows.  The most prominent feature of a bisj pole is usually the phallic symbol protruding from the uppermost figure on the pole, known as the cemen or tsjemen (penis).  This is carved from a root of the tree which is left intact when the tree is harvested.

The display at the Tropenmuseum managed to convey the majesty of these poles and the culture they represent, as well as the remote, mysterious and allegedly spirit-filled rainforests where the Asmat make their home.  The museum's vast, three-storey atrium, the Lighthal, was transformed into a perfectly fitting gallery for dozens of these stunning carvings by separating the central area from the rest of the space with translucent cloth, onto which images of the Asmat and their rituals were projected. 

A raised dais had been created in this central space, and visitors had to climb into this otherworldly display, in which the poles were set into the floor.  Hidden speakers filled the space with the sounds of the jungle, and changing lighting brought to mind the 'magic hour' when day fades to night, alternately lighting the poles and plunging them into a semi-darkness, that, combined with the sights and sounds of the forest and its people, nearly made my skin crawl.  I cannot imagine a better way for this collection to have been displayed. 

Short videos projected onto the sides of the dias,  with seating areas and headphones for the soundtrack completed the exhibit, and venturing onto the upper floors to view the museum's world-class collection of art and artifacts from Asia, Africa, and South America also afforded visitors the chance to view the poles from the side and top through the translucent cloth, further emphasizing their imposing size.

 Crossing town to the Netherlands Media Arts Institute involved a trip of a few kilometers and about 50,000 years.  The 'Video Vortex 2.0' show, which closes Sunday 2 March, is, as its name suggests, a sequel to the original 'Video Vortex.'  Perhaps a bit confusingly, both shows dealt with the Web 2.0 phenomenon. 

This concept is not a new version of technology for the World Wide Web, rather a change in the way developers write software and surfers use it.  Many definitions of Web 2.0 have been advanced, but the one I prefer is one put forward during a GeNeMe conference: "the philosophy of mutually maximizing collective intelligence and added value for each participant by formalized and dynamic information sharing and creation."

The entire second floor of the NMAI building (or the first floor, this being Europe) was taken up by the 'Video Vortex 2.0'displays.  The most unusual and one of the most interesting installations was Nancy Mauro-Flude's 2007 work 'Mythengine', which consisted of two parts, aptly labeled '(front end' and 'back end)' 

(front end was a projection of the work itself on a large screen in a separate room.   The display was of numerous static images and stills taken from video superimposed with a current time/date stamp and cryptic statements such as "Too many screens flicker and I black out," and "The burnt out smell of my selves disconnecting." 

back end) comprised a computer monitor and the chair on which it sat.  The screen showed, in a very large format, the code used to create the show in the next room in real-time as it ran.  The work  "shows how over time, with the rise of digital photography and video, our collective memory is increasingly becoming a database," according to the NMAI website (see link above).

Other works on display more acutely depicted the interactive nature of the Web 2.0 philosophy, perhaps none more so than 'Curator for One Day'.  This installation allowed visitors to a website (which I am not including because the curator slots are already booked until the end of the show) to chose videos from a vast library and arrange them to be viewed by visitors to the show itself. 

Christian Alandete, the curator on the day I visited, arranged his selections in order to simulate a TV show, opening with Johan Grimonprez' 2005 film 'Looking for Alfred,' an homage to opening of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' in which Hitchcock lookalikes recite the text of an explanation of the cinematic plot device 'MacGuffin' Hitchcock gave to Francois Truffaut in a 1966 interview.

As an actual TV program would, Alandete's ended with 'Credits,' in this case Antonio Muntadas' 1984 film consisting of 27 minutes and 10 seconds of credits.  The segments in between included films such as Fiona Tan's 'Totenklage/Lacymosa' from 1993. 

This homage to Ciro Iamarco, who died of AIDS in the same year Tan completed the project, comprises found bits of 35mm black and white movie film and a haunting soundtrack by Gregory Whitebread.  The overall effect is as disturbing as the inevitability of death.  It ends with the same images played backwards and then upside down, removing all meaning from the subtitles that appear.

 It is a testament to the extreme diversity of the arts in the Netherlands that in one day, not far from one another, the visitor can experience an artistic tradition that dates back perhaps tens of thousands of years and certainly into time immemorial, and then be whisked away into the cutting edge of modern technology's ability to aid and inform human expression.

Joshua C. Robinson

jrobinson at riseup dot net

In one of life's cute little ironies, I first learned of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn's role as an innovator of the graphic arts at the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas, about which I wrote in a previous post.  Seeing his etching alongside the graphic works of other world famous artists who worked in the centuries after his death, including Toulouse-Lautrec, Warhol, and Soto, expanded my knowledge of his work.  Previously, I had thought of the master as merely the creator of oil paintings, such as that national treasure of the Netherlands, Nachtwacht, which I saw years ago at the Rijksmuseum.

So I could not believe my luck when I got to Museum het Rembrandthuis last month and found that, in addition to the permanent display of the great artist's home restored and furnished as it would have been when he lived there in the early 1600s, the temporary exhibition was of his engravings, with a focus on the techniques he used to advance the field of graphic art.

The museum is entered through the basement of the adjacent building, which opens into the basement of the house itself, which contains the kitchen/servants quarters.  Ascending a typically steep Amsterdam staircase leads to the entrance hall, where Rembrandt displayed paintings for sale and through which visitors entered.  The anteroom to the left as one entered the front door is where he received guests with a glass of chilled wine to discuss business.  The walls here, too, are covered now, as they were then, with 17th century paintings, although today the works are not for sale.

Just behind this room, and opposite the staircase, lies the room where Rembrandt's press was, and where he hung his etchings up to dry.  The room at the rear of the first floor, known as the salon, was what today we would call his bedroom, and contains, as it did when the great master slept there, a box bed, massive fireplace, and, again, a number of important oil paintings.

Upstairs are only two rooms, the large studio and the 'cabinet,' which is actually a large room, perhaps akin to a massive modern-day walk-in closet, where Rembrandt stored a vast collection of rare items and objects d'art, including seashells, globes, busts, corals, animal parts, weapons, glassware and other artifacts.  The room also housed his albums of art which contained more than 8000 prints and other works.

The studio, the largest room in the house, provides constant light during the day from the bank of north-facing windows which covers the entire front wall.  In addition to space for Rembrandt to create his masterpieces, the studio also contained space for assistants to prepare his paints and canvases, as well as plaster casts and pieces of armor used by the master and his pupils as models.

Continuing further upstairs, and then progressing back down into the adjacent building takes visitors through the gallery space for temporary exhibitions.  At the time of my visit, the galleries contained a number of Rembrandt prints, often in more than one 'state' as well as the copper plates used to produce them.

These works were chosen to highlight the different techniques Rembrandt used to produce the art which led to his being regarded as perhaps the greatest producer of etchings of all time.  Some of the techniques were quite simple, such as making counterproofs by laying clean sheets of paper onto fresh prints to make a reverse of the print, therefore exactly copying the plate, producing an image to use for comparison when making corrections.

Others were much more complicated, such as varying the etching time on different areas of the plate.  This effects the amount of reaction that takes place between the copper and the solvent used to etch it, creating effects such as the seemingly different lighting conditions throughout the scene in Abraham Casting Out Hagar and Ishmael from 1637.

Rembrandt even used effects which would normally be considered mistakes to create his prints, as can be seen in his 1633 work The Flight to Egypt, during the etching of which bubbles in the acid bath were allowed to remain, sticking to the plate and preventing the acid from reaching certain parts, creating the stars in the nighttime sky.

The collection also showed how his choice of bases for the prints he made.  For example, side by side versions of St. Jerome in an Italian Landscape (c. 1654) printed on Japanese and European paper show how the Japanese version allows the ink to bleed, permitting distinct lines to better depict subtle shading.  Also, versions of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream on European paper as well as vellum show how the latter shrinks and distorts over the centuries, making it less than ideal for prints meant to stand the test of time despite its luminous sheen.

Before my visit to el Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, I might have been disappointed to pay a small fortune in increasingly worthless American dollars to visit a museum devoted to Rembrandt and see only one of his paintings (his 1635 Minerva hangs in the entrance hall).  Having seen the master's work in its rightful place in the pantheon of great graphic art, however, I could have appreciated nothing more than seeing the techniques he used and the works they produced.  After all, the Nightwatch is always on display just across town.

Joshua C. Robinson

jrobinson@riseup.net

Heading to Europe from Venezuela caused a great deal of sticker shock.  Even after the new currency came out on 1 January, knocking three zeroes off of the Bolivar, greenbacks still traded at five to one on the black market, and, even in Caracas, $30 a day proved to be more than adequate to get by on.

By the time my friend and I reached the Netherlands, $30 yielded only about 20 euros, and that's less than I spent each day just on our twin shared hotel room.  Add in food, drinks, and an occasional trip to a coffeeshop, and it proved hard to get by on much less than $75 per day.  And that figure doesn't include the often quite dear admission prices charged by many of the wonderful museums that help make this gorgeous city one of my favorite travel destinations in the world.

Luckily for us yanks, Amsterdam does offer a number of free attractions.  While they may not have the splendor of the Rijksmuseum or the Stedelijk, both those world-class venues charge in the neighborhood of $15 admission, and, besides, both were partially closed for renovations during my visit anyway.

While it is easy to while away hours without spending a single euro cent by wandering the breathtaking canals in this city, one of the most beautiful in the world, come January the weather gets a bit chilly and it sometimes becomes necessary to seek refuge from the cold.  Free attractions like the Multatuli Museum provide the prefect respite from the weather as well as foreign exchange rates.

This small institution tucked down a side street off Herengracht in the western canal belt just a ten minute walk or one tram stop from Centraal Station.  It features a small collection of personal effects once owned by Multatuli, the Dutch writer born Eduard Douwes Dekker in 1820.  He began his career as a civil servant in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), where he worked for 18 years.

After seeing the way native and Dutch rulers treated the people of the vast and beautiful archipelago, he returned to the Netherlands disillusioned in 1856.  Determined to unmask the oppression he had witnessed, he began to write pamphlets and newspaper articles about it, but few paid him any mind until the 1860 publication of his satirical novel Max Havelaar.

Widely read throughout Europe, this work exposed the exploitation of slave labor in the East Indies and provoked a defensive response from colonial apologists.  Multatuli published another satirical work, Love Letters, in 1861  and continued his literary career for the same length of time as he had worked in the Indies, 18 years, before retiring to Germany, where he died in a red chaise lounge in 1887.  In 2002 he was recognized as the greatest Dutch writer of all time by the Society for Dutch Literature.

The museum dedicated to him hold a small collection of his personal effects, including a globe, his personal library in a beautiful wood and glass display case, his writing desk, engravings and portraits, the chaise lounge where he died and the urn which, for a time, held his ashes.  There is also a small room for rotating exhibits, which at the time of my visit contained a collection of books.

Passing back past Centraal Station into the Eastern part of the waterfront area leads to a small museum zone where the Amsterdam Shipping Museum is housed and where the temporary home of the Stedelijk is while the architectural wonder that is its permanent home on the Museumplein to the south is being renovated and expanded to meet future needs.

Since I was not interested in shipping or seeing a partial collection of the modern art that has made the Stedelijk world-famous, and was trying to save a bit of cash, I decided to head to the ARCAM Architectuurcentrum Amsterdam, which is located in a modernist building right on the water's edge.

The center hosts rotating exhibitions in its airy space with lots of glass overlooking the calm waters of the Oosterdok.  During my visit, for which there was no entrance fee, a maze of displays had been set up with a treasure trove of information about the past, present, and future of urban planning in Bogota, Colombia.  Perhaps owing to the high level of English literacy in the Netherlands, the entire exhibit was presented in my mother tongue, and I enjoyed seeing the wonderful, large photographs and reading about the plans for the gem of a South American capital which I hope to see firsthand one day soon.

While, especially as an American suffering under our economy as it slides seemingly inexorably toward third world status, it is impossible to avoid shelling out the big bucks to see the best of what Amsterdam's artistic and cultural heritage has to offer, there are still a few ways to pass the days and keep the euros firmly in your wallet.

 

Joshua C. Robinson

jrobinson@riseup.net

Over the months I spent in Venezuela, I had the opportunity to see the work of Carlos Villanueva, the country's most famous architect, a number of times.  In order to get a good look at the work of the most famous Venezuelan visual artist, Jesus Soto, I had to wait until I reached my last destination, his hometown of Ciuded Bolivar.  It was absolutely worth the wait.

Soto was born in 1923 and began his artistic career in his teens painting movie posters for local theaters.  He later studied art in Caracas directed an art school in Maracaibo before moving to Paris in 1950.  Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, his work appeared in one-man shows at top museums throughout the world including Amsterdam's Stedelijk and the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York, and in major exhibitions at the Sao Paulo and Vienna bicentennials as well as New York's Museum of Modern Art.  He died in 2005.

Soto pioneered techniques in the kinetic and op-art genres, including perhaps his most unique idiom: placing items in front of a patterned background to create the illusion of movement within the piece as the observer moves.  This method produces mesmerizing works such as his 1981 'Gran Tes Negra', a large board almost completely covered with four raised black squares, which are covered with closely spaced thin vertical white stripes.  Rising from the surface are t-shaped black wires, with the crossbars more or less lined up horizontally.  Standing at a distance, any motion by the observer creates a shimmering, vibrating effect within the piece that is difficult to turn away from.

In the middle of his most productive period, Soto opened the Jesus Soto Museum of Modern Art in his hometown with the help of his dear friend Villanueva.  Soto donated millions of dollars worth of his artworks (including 'Gran Tes Negra'), and Villanueva donated his services designing the chunky modernest building.  The museum was inaugurated in 1973.

Many of Soto's earlier works utilized Plexiglas to achieve similar results, and some of these can be seen at his eponymous museum.  His 1955 'Espiral' features two similar spirals, one on the background and one on a sheet of Plexiglas raised several centimeters over the surface by metal rods.  The interplay of the two as the observer's perspective changes produces the illusion of movement.

According to information provided at the museum, Soto became fascinated with modern physics, and this fascination led to the evolution of his work from the use of Plexiglas to the more complex metal works.  In particular, the concepts that time is merely the fourth spatial dimension and that energy and matter are but two aspects of the same thing informed his later works.  These discoveries, of course, led to the advancement of quantum physics, which tells us that observers at the very least change, if not create, reality, and this fact courses through Soto's work, which seems inseparable from its intended audience.

Some of Soto's pieces are on a truly grand scale.  The largest one that fits in the Museum is 'Esfera Japon' from 1991.  The work, which stretches from the floor to the ceiling, creates and almost holographic effect from a vast number of plastic threads which are held taut between white wooden blocks.  Parts of the centers of each strand are colored red, and they are arranged in such a way that a large red sphere seems to hover in the center.  Nonetheless, it is easy to see through the piece, meaning that as the observer moves around it, its appearance changes, as does that of the rest of the room seen through it.

Larger sill are the works for which Soto is perhaps most famous, his 'Penetrables', two of which can be experienced in the sculpture garden on the grounds outside the museum's numerous halls.  I differentiate experiencing the pieces from seeing them because to merely see a Soto 'Penetrable' would be akin to smelling the 'Mona Lisa' without having a look.

The 'Penetrables' are large cubic metal frames hung with vertical metal bars or plastic threads into which the viewer can walk, and indeed must walk if the artworks are to be appreciated.  The largest on the campus is his 1994 'Penetrable Amarillo' at a massive nine by nine by ten meters.  The frame is hung with yellow and black flexible PVC tubes that caress the skin and distort the view of the outside world as one passes into the piece.

'Penetrable Sonoro,' dated 1970-93 is smaller at 4 meters cubed, but still imposing.  The vertical components here are hollow metal tubes of varying diameter hung on chains to allow them to move.  The tubes at the outside of the cube are smaller, while those toward the inside are several centimeters across.  In addition to the tactile and visual impact of passing into the piece, doing so causes the tubes to strike one another, creating a sound inspired by the carillons and chimes of his adopted home.  Having gone to Amsterdam, the capital of the capital of carillons, just weeks after penetrating this piece, I can say he got it spot on.  Passing through the sculpture is as ethereal an experience as hearing the bells echo through the canals.

While the Museum bears his name, Soto is not the only artist whose work is on view there.  Also in the sculpture garden are works by other artists, including Soto's friend and compatriot Alexander Otero, whose 1981 'Molino de Cuatro' is on display there.  This two meter steel cubic frame is balanced one corner and contains a four-vaned steel windmill on a vertical axis, with vanes reminiscent of sails.

Inside the buildings, several rooms are dedicated to the work of the Venezuelan painter and sculptor Gego.  Born Gertrude Goldschmidt in Germany in 1912, she fled the holocaust to South America in 1939.  The collection in the Soto Museum comprises sketches and models of her imposing works, particularly her 'Reticuláreas', which fill the spaces for which they are designed with interwoven nets and webs of steel and aluminium bars.  One hall of the National Art Gallery is filled with a 'Reticulárea,' as is much of the space near the entrance to La Hoyada Metro station in downtown Caracas.  Both works are mesmerizing due to their scope and complexity.  While I did not personally see the rest of them, her works also adorn other huge interior spaces throughout Caracas in office towers and shopping malls, making the informative display in Ciudad Bolivar a must for anyone wanting to get an idea of these works as a group.

While Caracas is as much the artistic capital of Venezuela as it is the political one, Ciudad Bolivar scores a coup with the wonderful Jesus Soto Museum of Modern Art.  Authorities wanted it to be placed in Caracas, but Soto insisted that it be in his hometown, and the citizenry should thank him for this as much as for his generosity.  It is truly a world-class place, one that any city could be proud of.

Joshua C. Robinson

jrobinson@riseup.net

Well, here I am.  After a two-week working holiday in Amsterdam, I find myself once again in the City of Angels, Bangkok, with a month's worth of entries to catch up on.  I arrived in Ciudad Bolivar, my last stop in Venezuela, just over a month ago, in fact, and published my last post a few days later, so I have some leftovers from South America and everything I saw in the land of bikes and dikes to write about before I even think about seeing what's new in the arts community here.

Before heading back to Caracas for my flight home, I had hoped to make it to Ciudad Bolivar and the Amazon city of Puerto Ayacucho in the little more than a week I had left after holing up on the beach in Santa Fe until 2 January to (or so I thought) wait out the New Year's holiday.  Boy, was I wrong.  The first inkling that I had not avoided the effects of the festivities came when I arrived in Puerto La Cruz, a busy hub just down the coast from Santa Fe.

I got there early in the morning, and checked every ticket counter for a bus to Ciudad Bolivar that day, to no avail.  Then I walked around to six or eight hotels, all of which were fully booked.  Then I headed back to the bus station, where, after a lengthy detour waiting for more passengers for a share taxi I ran across on the way back, I finally found one with a full complement of riders, save one empty spot for me.

Four hours crammed into the back of a Ford Fiesta with two other grown men as we hurtled down two lane roads at speeds over 160kph and overtook as if the fate of the world depended on it brought me to Ciudad Bolivar.  Almost everything was closed.  The friendly German owner of the posada where I stayed told me why: New Year's celebrations in Venezuela last a week!  Who knew?

 That meant there would be no way for me to get out of town to go to the Amazon, and that, even if I could, all the museums in Ciudad Bolivar would be closed until after I left, anyway.  So I found myself stuck in town longer than I had wanted, but luckily, I found plenty to see and do to help the time pass.

 Ciudad Bolivar, which was renamed after El Libertador because, after capturing it in 1817, Simon Bolivar declared independence for Venezuela here and then used it as a base for the revolutionary government.  At the time it was known as Angostura, the Spanish word for 'narrows', as it sits on a narrows in the mighty Orinoco River.  The original name lives on as the moniker of the famous aromatic bitters which German Dr. Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, a Surgeon General in Bolivar's Army, invented there.

Today, the city is a pleasant riverside metropolis with a wonderfully preserved colonial section I find more alluring than the one in Coro, although because it lacks the unique blend of architectural influences in that Caribbean town (see previous posts), it is not recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The city has a wonderful artistic legacy, not least as the birthplace of Jesus Soto, who is most renowned for his op-art and kinetic art pieces.  He and his good friend Carlos Raul Villanueva (see previous posts) donated the Jesus Soto Museum of Modern Art, which will be the subject of my next post, to the city. 

There are many other venues in the city, although none of them rise to the level of the world class Soto collection.  Perhaps the most interesting is the Casa des Tejas.  Perched atop a huge rock outcropping towering over the river, this quaint little gallery sells handicrafts as well as some perfectly competent oil paintings, that, while perhaps not investment quality, would nonetheless look good in one's living room.  Everything is priced quite reasonably and the views from the house are great.

A bit further inland, by Plaza Miranda, sits the Centro de las Artes, a wonderful space, that, like many in the country, is sadly underused.  It houses two large galleries, only one of which was in use at the time of my visit.  The spaces are vast: long rooms with soring ceilings.  The exhibition in the one in use was a hotchpotch of works of varying quality and seemed to lack any curatorial direction. 

All the works were produced in 2007, and this, combined with the quality of the pieces (some very good, others not so much) led me to believe that the artists were, perhaps, a group of students or the like.  If so, then the fact that such work can be seen in such a venue makes up for the lamentable fact that the other hall stood empty save a singe work by Soto that, I can only assume, lives there.  At any rate, it is hard to find such recent works in such a wonderful space in the US, least of all for free.

There is also a municipal museum with a strange collection of modern sculpture, historical artifacts and the like, which paled by comparison to other institutions in the country, but which represents a wonderful educational tool if a field trip to Caracas is out of the question. 

 And, last but certainly not least, Ciudad Bolivar has an outlet of the government-run Red des Artes chain of galleries.  That's right, the government runs art galleries.  The small spaces located in cities throughout the country are wonderful outlets for local artists to sell their wares.  Everything from small carvings and prints for only a few dollars, through jewelry and on to paintings costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars are on offer, with each gallery featuring different artists' works.  I also had a chance to visit the outlet in Caracas a week later, and found it to be of equal quality.

 Between the progressiveness of Chavez' revolution, the beneficence of local artistic legends, and the tourist dollars that allow private galleries to thrive, Ciudad Bolivar has enough to keep any art lover busy, even if they are stuck in town for a week.

 

Joshua C. Robinson

jrobinson@riseup.net