News from Nowhere
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Vintage Amsterdam trash bin, birds eye maple imitation, linseedoil and earth pigments, annee grøtte viken, 2024
(Nelly&) Theo van Doesburg Foundation and private art collectors Annelies van der Pauw and Martin de Koning invited a handful of carefully selected Amsterdam-based opinion makers, property developers from Sluisbuurt and Zuidas, press and other stakeholders of our foundation to a one-day exhibition and salon conversation called News from Nowhere. The activity programme takes place during the Open Monuments Days in Amsterdam.
Vintage Amsterdam trash bin, birds eye maple imitation, linseedoil and earth pigments, annee grøtte viken, 2024
Vintage Amsterdam trash bin, birds eye maple imitation, linseedoil and earth pigments, annee grøtte viken, 2024
From historic townhouse to construction site, News from Nowhere is a one-day group show in a private home bringing together alumni of Dutch art academies and works of private art collections as it relates to agrarian society, biology, class mobility, liquidity and water management. The series is named after a publication of the arts & crafts movement; news from nowhere (an epoch of rest). This soft science fiction shows how socialism not only leads to the abolition of private property but also take away the divisions between art, life, and work thus making it a conversation piece and reference point for the exhibition series. In the novel, the narrator falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the socialist league and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.
The foundation also organises Construction Site Conversations on location in areas still under development, but this afternoon takes place in a stately canal house in the middle of Amsterdam, in the home of two collectors. The setting imbues the discussions with a certain weight, concentration, and goodwill.
In its role as initiator and mediator, the foundation’s mission is to find moral, financial, and organisational support for proposals by alumni of Amsterdam art academies. This is a long process because these proposals are in principle unsolicited: the necessary expertise, partners and financial resources must be secured along the way. The focus lies primarily on neighbourhoods where the most development is taking place, particularly the Zuidas and the Sluisbuurt, where 5,500 homes in mainly high-rise buildings are presently being built. As for all projects in public space, the mix of flexibility and persistence must be just right, but these conditions make diplomacy even more crucial.
Annee Grøtte Viken plans to sow several circles of oil flax in the Sluisbuurt. The annual harvest would provide the linseed to make pigment for in-situ painting. The municipal landscape architect has already inscribed the crop circles into the park planning of the entrance area of the new neighbourhood. What remains to be orchestrated is the necessary labour for seeding, maintaining the fields, making the paint, and finally realising the paintings. The amount of paint will vary depending on the season’s harvest.
read more about the exhibition here
Vintage Amsterdam trash bin, birds eye maple imitation, linseedoil and earth pigments, annee grøtte viken, 2024