Berlijn in je koffer

Berlijn. Moet nog even goed bedenken waarom het direct als je het station uitstapt zo'n veel levendiger, energieker gevoel geeft dan Amsterdam. Er gebeurt veel meer, in kleine winkeltjes, restaurants, alternatievo's, extreme kunstenaars, etc. En dat na twee dagen.. Misschien komt het omdat ik in Kreuzberg logeer. Ik dronk mijn koffie in een walm van jeugdsentiment: allemaal van die leuke extreme figuren om me heen die ik in Amsterdam sinds mijn studententijd niet meer tegen kom. Zou ze bijna meenemen in mijn koffer: komop, we gaan Amsterdam weer eens wakker kussen! Iedere cultuur, ik heb het al eerder geschreven, moet zijn jeugdige extremen koesteren. Daar komt de toekomst vandaan!
Maar nee, ik wil schrijven, geen discussie zoeken. Vandaag met veel moeite de Staatsbibliotheek in gemogen. Mijn rijbewijs bleek geen identificatiekwaliteit te hebben, zoals de dame achter de balie mij drie keer op besliste maar vriendelijke toon bleef zeggen. (ja maar, dit kost me een hele dag, anders!) Haar chef kwam met hetzelfde verhaal, wees me vriendelijk op de voorkant: Das ist ein Führerschein, kein identitätskarte. Maar na een erg lange pijnlijke stilte die ik volhield met zielig kijken, streek ze over haar hart. Het kan ook in Duitsland. Als ik morgen maar mijn paspoort laat zien. Ik vind het goed. Lekkere bieb weer, hoor. Heerlijk gelezen over de jaren negentig, de jaren dat we nog geloofden in de beleveniseconomie en de jaren dat iedereen nerveus rondrende om al zijn persoonlijke grenzen op te rekken met bungeejumpen, parapenten, kinky parties, funshoppen, motorrijden en wat nog niet meer allemaal. Het lijkt al zo lang geleden..

Babbling art

Done a lot. Seen Rock and Roll, the play by Tom Stoppard, about the way music plays it's part in history between 1968 en 1989. After the break it got really interesting, when three generations come together. I have already been thinking of a second book, about how each cultural season in my theory delivers another generation, who's formative years are heavily influenced by the spirit of the times. But let's finish this one first. Done a reading on modern art which was nice but a bit boring. Most modern art critics can't choose between being overly conceptual and use totally un-understandable language ("we can see the painter's concept of beauty forming by postmodern feminism being drawn into it's own language, eternally reverbating bla bla bla") or just showing tons of pictures without any story at all. Hope my book will do better. One interesting artist group reinvented graffiti and hacked computer games to spray their message upon walls in the game itself. Great idea. For the rest: writing, reading, buying music, seeing movies..
And flying back to Holland, tomorrow.

greed is a little less good

Someone mailed me and asked about my opinion, working from my theory, on the credit crisis. I've written about it a few times already. But it is interesting that now more and more governments are willing to put limits on CEO salaries and dealings. Of course, it is easy to say that that is a sign of winter, when putting limits to some things and ending others is a necessity. Sceptics would say there is simply no other option left. But still, I hope there really will be an even broader discussion in society about the limits of dealing with our money. Because, in the end we are all responsible. About 8 years ago (I sound like Obama now) I wrote an article on how it is essentially our money in pension funds and savings accounts that enables hedge funds and agressive bank policies. When I mentioned that to even close friends, they became either irritated or changed the subject: "not my responsibility" (typical autumn response). But it is! You're paying for it this winter! If we all would have been just a little less greedy and would have demanded from our personal pension fund a reasonable but not excessive return on investment, then the problems would never amount to what we're facing now. There should be pressure from consumer groups now, from labour unions and from well known individuals to discuss what our collective limits are, when it comes to our money being invested by the Gordon Gekkos of today. That would be a very, very good investment in this winter period. Because in a few years cultural spring is arriving and then nobody has much interest in these things again. Think about the eighties..
Of course governments should already have placed limits on raiding and hedging and dangerous credits in the last winter period, between 1983 and 1988. Remember the small crash in 1987? That would have been a good moment. But alas, right then aggressive financial operations were still new and looked so effective to all the yuppies and governments still faithfully believing that greed was good. It is, be it limited.

Happy days and religulous statements

Some days are just happy days. Today was a very good one. How it happens, I don’t know, but on the happy days I just open my computer in the morning, start typing and good sentences just flow out. And I know even when writing them. The day flew by writing about the revolutionary cultural spring period between 1988 and 1994, but inbetween I enjoyed lunch at a table in the sun, just to congratulate myself. Hey, I’m a Leo, they are supposed to be good at self-congratulation. After the afternoon work went just as well, I decided to buy tickets to a theatre show this Friday (Rock and Roll by Tom Stoppard) and take a movie. Religulous, a mockumentary about all the craziness of religion. Don’t know if it will show in Holland, but there were a lot of Dutch muslims and politicians in there (the boring old Wilders for instance). I guess Maher and Larry Charles (the man who made Borat-the movie) wanted to travel to Amsterdam when given the choice. And the fact that we understand English very well, so he can ask anything, but need a little extra time to phrase a response so he can throw about jokes and new questions helps too, to get a few laughs. Making jokes about the wildest stories in the Bible, Mormon books or Koran is always fun, but the concept of mockumentary is getting a bit boring in itself too. A few quotes, a lot of travel, quirky montage, but in the end Bill Maher proves he’s got the same one track mindedness as his interviewees. Had some fun laughing at American christian extremities though, and at least one point came across clearly: at least three different religions have the same storyline as the Bible on the birth and life of Jesus, only hundreds of years before and under different names. But no fanatical christian will be converted to a milder view. So no disruption here, just preaching for the already converted, so to speak.

American life..

Ten days in New York, full of inspiration and fun, walking around, enjoying the skyscrapers and the museums. And the shops. Then Marcel flew home and I took the bus to Philadelphia. Just unpacked in my exchange apartment, which suits me fine. A whole month, dedicated to writing; really looking forward to starting tomorrow. A flash of happiness again today, walking the streets of Philadelphia. Spending a month in one place gives me a perfect sense of freedom. There is no hurry, no holiday stress ('what's next..??!'), only the feeling of quiet expectation, a detached and relaxed view on the world that really gets my inspiration flowing. No worries at all, so all thoughts can go into thinking about culture, and the changes over the years. We'll see how the inspiration translates into text, but I'm confident. After a few months of working hard on paid projects, now is the time to focus on my private project, my book.
These may be turbulent times for America, but they're reflective times for me. American life suits me, now. See you later, calvinistic Holland.

the seasons of art

A small group tour through Here is Every, a exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. 40 years of modern art is the subtitle, so I ran to it, writing a book on the last 50 years of seasonality in timeframes. And found more than enough new evidence for my theory. Some artists even used phrases that fit my theory exactly, ranging from the 'personal growth for all' cultural summer (1971-1977), during which Bruce Nauman made a piece that pictures the oval circles of the world, combined with a text line like: "the need within me to stretch myself to a certain point". Yes, Bruce, that's a good summer-quote! But after everyone is stretching themselves, we enter eachother's 'bubble' and that leads to polarization and cultural autumn. At the end of the seventies, a lot of artist become insecure, making art that's not finished, that's partly not visible, and has, more often than not, (symbolic) death as a theme. The despair of autumn, you might call it, with it's sense of memento mori. Victor Grippo's work in the 1980s is a nice example, if you can read the text (will grow bigger if you click on it).. Eighties art is either rather reflective, introvert, or 'poppy', just like cultural winter predicts. And then, yes, really, things open up again and artist find new techniques, dive deeply into interactive art and a new optimism. But then it's the nineties and cultural spring again. Ah well, you will understand once you've read the book. Have patience and faith.

A meet with Philo

Had drinks with an old colleague of mine, Philo, who now lives and works in NYC. It was interesting to hear about her experience with the American culture. She loved her work here, but said there were clear differences. Example: she's pregnant and pregnant women keep working until the last day of their pregnancy, if they can't afford leave without pay. Women rush to the hospital from behind their desk and are back at it after a month. Talk about work ethics. But they have to, because the work culture is very opportunistic and short term, in America, she found out. She also mentioned the hierarchy in work relations and the American need for structure: if she won't state exactly what she wants to get done, it won't get done. Where in Holland everyone wants to know what the long term company goal is, so they can work towards it, most Americans want to know what they have to do day by day. This means a lot of talk about the end goals in Holland, but also a lot of meetings about the daily process in America. It also shows in daily behavior: so much more daily things are regulated in New York. The government tells you what to do and what not to do much more often than in Holland. On the other hand: what's not regulated, is 'free-for-all' terrain. Yes, we noticed, looking at the financial institutions. And on the sideway: paper to be recycled is placed in huge plastic (!) bags on the sideway. One of those huge bags was filled with no more than 2 pizzaboxes and an empty shoebox..
The American culture is more extreme, it's always flips from the front of the coin to the back, while the Dutch often end up with a very broad in-between area: we keep balancing on the side. Cultural differences, they keep popping up, shame they are still so little studied in day to day business.