4rth visit Thomas Hirschhorn

Thomas was here again, his fourth visit in less than a year. And again, I was overwhelmed by his fire and energy. We actually have a GO for the Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival, which will take place from 9 May - 11 July 2009.

The sculpture will consist of a BIG BOOK (Spinoza's Ethica) which houses among others a Spinoza exhibition, a library, a Bijlmer documentation centre an internet cafe, a take-out restaurant, a workshop space and a stage. Every day, for two months, Thomas will be there, together with local inhabitants and a group of invited philosophers and art critics. There will be daily philosophical lectures, a Spinoza play (written by Marcus Steinweg and performed by an amateur theatre group form the Bijlmer), live radio or tv broadcasts, etc.

You gotta admire the man's ambition and determination.

Less of a frenzy!

Well, the financial crisis resulted in considerably less frenzy at the Frieze Art Fair than the previous years. I went with Nienke this year. It was a great trip, combining hard work (Frieze, Zoo, Tate x 2, etc) with plent of leisure (Le Caprice x 100, Michael Gambon in Pinter's No Man's Land and a splash out at Saka No Hana).

We were delighted to spot some works by 'our' artsists. Hirschhorn was of course represented (Croussel and Arndt) and we saw a very suprising work by Allora & Calzadilla at (I think it was) Gagosian. Michael Beutler - who has submitted a great proposal for Open Source Amsterdam - tranformed the booth of Galerie Christian Nagel.

Monika Sosnowksa's beautiful Portavilion was one of the public space projects. In spite of the sign, the sculpture is very popular as a climbing object for kid's and their fathers alike.