Tag: History
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Liberation Day
Liberation Day For the 75th time this year. Every year on the 5th of May we celebrate the end of the occupation by Nazi Germany. On the 7th of May 1945 the allied forces drove through this street, then called the Noorder Amstellaan, into Amsterdam, cheered and applauded by its inhabitants. A year later the…
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Oswiecim
Oswiecim Having come into being at the end of the war and been born in a Netherlands that had regained its freedom, the horrors of the Second World War have been etched into my consciousness through harrowing images and stories.One morning in 2007, on the train from Kraków to Prague, we made a stopover in…
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Auschwitz
Auschwitz (…) Er ruft spielt süßer den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland er ruft streicht dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Rauch in die Luft dann habt ihr ein Grab in den Wolken da liegt man nicht eng (…) (…) he yells play sweeter for death Death is a German-born master…
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Palazzo del Podesta
Palazzo del Podesta When you look back from the steps of the Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio you see at the other end of the Piazza Grande the façade of the Palazzo del Podesta. The irregular distribution of the differently sized windows in the huge wall is fascinating. It invited me to make this composition.…
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Classic profiles
Classic profiles It catches the eye, that big head against a rock in the river. I don’t know why it was placed there, but it takes our thoughts back to the arts of Greek antiquity. And that’s always gratifying. The face in profile reminds me of a sculpture I had seen a few days before…
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Ancient Roman Emoji
Ancient Roman Emoji Photo of the week: Antiquity Collection, Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Germany 2005
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Anju’s dressing room
Anju’s dressing room Anju Dodiya had a whole series of works at the KMB 2018, that have a little photo of herself at the centre, almost like a selfie. The Biennale guidebook tells us: “In the ambience of an actor’s dressing room, with its row of double lights, the viewer encounters the artist/protagonist as a…
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A reminder
A reminder Name: Aaron Place of Birth: Cochin Age: 18 or 19 Sex: M Seller: Jan Dircx de Beer Buyer: Johannes Muller Price: Rds 55 Sold at: Cape Town 17.6.1687 Me, a Dutchman, looking at old Dutch names written on T-shirts hanging on a clothesline at the waterfront of Fort Cochin. Container ships passing in…
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Spare-ribs
Spare-ribs That’s what I thought they were. Relics of the skeleton of a gigantic prehistoric animal. Casually placed against a wall. Or are they remains of the skeletons of palm leaves? Plant and animal world (including us) are of the same nature after all. Photo of the week: Margao, Goa, India 2012
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Holysloot
Holysloot A one-street, dead-end village in Waterland, at 2 km from Ransdorp. Now also protected and lying within the municipal limits of Amsterdam. With a history going back more than 700 years it already figures under the name of Hoolesloot on this historical map of Waterland from the year 1288. Photo of the week: Holysloot,…
