Three hundred drones lit up the Amsterdam sky above the IJ with a light show on Saturday night. The drones flew in different formations, inspired by the flight patterns of starlings, AT5 reports.
The show premiered in Miami last year. A special exception was made to have the show in Amsterdam on Saturday, because drones are actually forbidden in the airspace around Schiphol airport.
On Tuesday the police recovered seven valuable paintings that were stolen from a resident of Voerendaal. The paintings include works by Mondriaan, Mesdag, Tischbein and V. Kulagina, among others, and are worth hundreds of thousands of euros, the police said in a statement on Thursday. Three suspects were arrested.
On Monday the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam called on people who make the Hajj, the pilgrimage, to Mecca to take selfies of their trip for a new exhibition, despite the fact that the Saudi authorities banned taking photos and selfies at religious and spiritual places in the country last year, AT5 reports.
The photo ban also applies to the Masjid al-Haram mosque, which is known as a pilgrimage site during Hajj.
Amsterdam West wants to put up an artwork in the district showing deceased mayor Eberhard van der Laan's final instruction to his people: "
Artist Joost Zwanenburg made an error when he painted a new war memorial at the Herenhof shopping center in Alphen aan den Rijn. The plane depicted on the monument is not the Halifax that crashed in 1944, as it was meant to be, but a different type, NU.nl reports.
The Amsterdam Art Council advised the Stedelijk Museum to focus on its own comprehensive collection instead of trying to compete with a "jet set" of super rich art collectors and museums with much higher budgets, NU.nl reports.
In December the then Amsterdam mayor and aldermen asked the Art Council to advise the Stedelijk Museum on the future positioning of the museum. Focusing on its own collection was the main part of that advice, according to the newspaper.
Amsterdam has the most to offer of all municipalities in the Netherlands when it comes to culture. Maastricht and Leeuwarden are in second and third place respectively, according to the new Atlas for Municipalities presented in Leeuwarden on Wednesday afternoon, Het Parool reports.
Among the provinces, Groningen has the biggest cultural offering, followed by Zeeland and Noord-Holland. Flevoland is last on the ranking.
Photographer Erwin Olaf donated 412 photographs, seven videos and countless magazines to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The museum also bought 60 of his other photographs and three videos for 200 thousand euros, the Volkskrant reports.
The Rijksmuseum will host an exhibition of Olaf's work next year. According to Olaf and the museum, the photographs are the "core collection" of his oeuvre. Every two years, the museum and Olaf will consult and decide what will be added to the collection.
The Anne Frank Foundation released two previously unseen pages from the diary of Anne Frank. On the two pages, which were covered by brown paper, the Jewish girl wrote sexual jokes and what she thought about sex education, ANP reports.
The Noordbrabants Museum bought a Van Gogh painting titled Still life with bottles and shell from a private individual abroad for 2.5 million euros, the museum announced on Wednesday. This is the third painting by Vincent van Gogh that the museum in Den Bosch bought in as many years.
The success of a few large museums in the Netherlands created the image that all is well in the museum world, but that is not the case at all, according to the Council for Culture. Small museums in the country are struggling, the Council warns, RTL Nieuws reports.
Public attractions like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam with its collection of Rembrandts, or the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague with its Mondriaans, have nothing to complain about. But the smaller museums are having a very hard time attracting visitors, according to the Council.
Els and Jan Blokker, founder of the Blokker concern, are donating their collection of paintings by Dutch avant-gardists from around 1900 to the Singer Laren museum, the museum announced in a video. The so-called Nardinc Collection consists of over a hundred paintings, NOS reports.
A lifelike doll of Amalia, crown princess of the Netherlands, will be on display at the Art Dolls Expo in Amsterdam this weekend. After that the doll will be auctioned off on Catawiki. This is the first time a doll is made to look like a Dutch princess, RTL Nieuws reports.
The doll was made by Russian doll maker Elena Timkaeva and stands 69 centimeters tall.
Artist Rob Scholte wants Prime Minister Mark Rutte to intervene in a conflict between him and the mayor of Den Helder. Scholte has a museum in an empty post office building in Den Helder, but the municipality sold the building and now he has to leave, Het Parool reports.
The Dutch government is allocating an annual 80 million euros a year for culture education, according to the memorandum Culture in an open society that Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven of Education, Culture and Science presented on Monday. Her ambition is to make sure that the cultural sector "flourishes", NOS reports.
The Fries Museum won a Global Fine Art Award in New York for its exhibition of work by Dronryp born artist Lourens Alma-Tadema (1836-1912). In the museum world, this award is also known as a 'museum Oscar', NOS reports.
The exhibition, titled Alma-Tadema: classic seduction, featured more than 80 works showing scenes from Antiquity. It attracted more than 158 thousand visitors this winter, a record for the Fries Museum.
A rarely seen early work by Vincent van Gogh will be displayed by art dealer Ivo Bouwman at the international art fair TEFAF in Maastricht on Saturday. The painting, titled Cityscape with drawbridge, has been privately owned for 114 years, ANP reports.
A full scan and analysis of Johannes Vermeer's most famous work Girl with a Pearl Earring started in full public view in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague on Monday. Until March 11th museum visitors can watch a team of internationally recognized scientists study this painting in an effort to find out more about the method and materials Vermeer used for this famous work.
In order to prevent the local film industry form being wiped out by foreign movies and series, entertainment distributors serving the Netherlands market should financially support more Dutch productions, the Raad voor Cultuur stated in a report. The top government advisory board for culture and the arts said those companies should also be forced to pay a tax on its income derived from Netherlands consumers to support the entertainment industry there.
The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague is launching a new study into painting 'Girl with a pearl Earring' by Johannes Vermeer. This research, involving microscopes, X-ray equipment and a special scanner, will happen in a glass workshop in the museum itself. And visitors are welcome to come and watch, the museum announced.
The research will be done by a team of international experts over a course of two weeks, starting on February 26th. Using state-of-the-art techniques, they will try to learn more about the method and materials Vermeer used for this famous work.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam bought a painting by Norse artist Edvard Munch - a portrait of German scientist Felix Auerbach. This is the first time this painting can be seen in the Netherlands, and according to the museum, also the only Munch portrait in a Dutch collection.
The museum unveiled the painting on Tuesday, the 74th anniversary of Munch's death. Munch (1863- 1944) painted the portrait in 1906, at the request of the German scientist.
Everyone who took part in the discussion on social media about the Mauritshuis Museum removing its namesake's bust from the foyer over the past days, can visit the museum in The Hague for free on Sunday, January 28th, museum director Emilie Gordenker announced on television program Buitenhof on Sunday.
The Mauritshuis museum decided to remove a bust of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, governor of the Dutch colony in Brasil from 1637 to 1644, from the museums foyer. The decision stemmed from "the growing public debate about we deal with slavery in the Netherlands (and in museums)", the Mauritshuis explained, according to the Volkskrant. The removal of the bust sparked a storm of outrage and criticism from people feeling that the Netherlands' history is being destroyed.
Researchers recently discovered that two drawings in black chalk were drawn by Vincent van Gogh, thereby expanding the legacy of the famous Dutch artist even further, the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation announced in a press release. Both drawings, Montmartre hill with quarry and Montmartre hill, can be seen in the Singer Laren museum from Tuesday.
