Gewone Dingen

Het succes van de kringloopwinkel

“Het fenomeen kringloopwinkel heeft de laatste jaren een grote vlucht genomen. De hartverwarmende documentaireserie ‘Het succes van de kringloopwinkel’ laat zien dat de kringloop niet alleen qua spullen, maar ook qua mensen vol verborgen parels zit.“

Everything is Illuminated

“I have reflected many times upon our rigid search. It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us, on the inside, looking out.”

- Alex

“In the movie—based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Everything Is Illuminated—, during his ‘very rigid search’ for the woman that saved his grandfather’s life, the main character, named Jonathan Safran Foer, shows several times how and why a collector acts.

Rob Scholte maakt kleurrijk spektakel met toegeëigende borduursels

Mag een kunstenaar werk van een ander tonen als werk van zichzelf? Daar valt over te discussiëren, maar Rob Scholte doet het. Zijn embroidery show is nu te zien in Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle.

De bananendoos sterft uit

Vlooienmarkten zijn ideaal jachtterrein voor verzamelaars. Om de eigen verzameling aan te vullen of de verzameling van anderen te bewonderen. Of om bananendozen te schieten.

Zou de stemming in een land ergens beter tot uiting komen dan in de voortuinen die er zijn aan te treffen? Oud-Volkskrant-fotograaf Daniel Koning stelde een staalkaart samen van wat Nederland in dit opzicht te bieden heeft. Tekst: Rob Gollin. Foto’s: Daniel Koning                

Heb je er ooit bij stilgestaan wat de inrichting van je raamkozijn over je vertelt? Of de objecten die je op je nachtkastje hebt staan?

In Gewone dingen kijk je naar de kleinste details van de leefomgeving van een uiteenlopende verzameling aan mensen. Het laat zien hoe zij in het leven staan en hoe dit gespiegeld wordt in hun leefruimte.

Met dit werk hoop ik de kijker bewust te maken van zijn omgeving en de verhalen die deze vertelt. Zo kan de kijker zich bewust worden van de waarde die juist de kleine dingen kunnen hebben en zich hierover verwonderen.

A metal trunk marked, ‘O.MAJID’ was spotted at Toronto’s Rose Antiques’ Closing Down Forever sale. The shop owner claimed the trunk was originally acquired from an East Toronto estate sale. “It’s filled with stuff. I haven’t had time to look through it,” the shopkeeper warned. For the price of forty dollars the exchange was final with one caveat, “If you find bonds, call me.”

Hundreds of photographs, negatives, hand written letters and objects rest inside and soon created a paper carpet on my hardwood floor.

“Created in Brussels, this project is a series of photographs that capture various and funny objects (sculptures, stuffed animals, trinkets …) displayed by people behind their window.

A dog on the lookout, a portrait of the Christ, a dusty Egyptian bust, an Earth globe with gaudy colors … These treasures protected by their transparent shields are perfect models, which besides their aesthetics, invite to read through an intimate story. What is the story of this Elvis fan couple, this Red Devils team supporter, or the anonymous showing his stuffed fox?

For several weeks, I walked the streets and avenues of the Belgian capital, discovering the hidden colours of this city. I felt as if I lived in a cold, grey city, and suddenly discovered, thanks to « My public window » project, a multiple, unexpected and surreal Brussels.”

Jean-Luc Feixa

Kanaleneiland Noord, Markus Lindfeld

“These photos were taken in the flats of Kanaleneiland Noord, a “problem neighborhood” of the Dutch city of Utrecht. Kanaleneiland was created in the massive expansion of the city in the 1960’s. After its gradual demise of what had been a middle-class residential neighborhood with multicultural heritage the city council decided to demolish the flats and make way for newer buildings. As a resident in 2011, I used this opportunity to get a first hand view on these empty spaces and its relation with its former residents.”

In onze opruim- en vernieuwingsdrift slaan we te ver door, vindt Frank Meester. Ogenschijnlijk nutteloze spullen en gebruiken hebben onvermoed waardevolle functies.

“De Amerikaanse William Eggleston (1939, Memphis, Tennessee US) geldt al bij leven als een van de meest toonaangevende fotografen van de afgelopen decennia. Hij pionierde op het gebied van kleurenfotografie vanaf het midden van de jaren 60 en verhief het alledaagse Amerika tot fotogeniek onderwerp. In William Eggleston – Los Alamos toont Foam het gelijknamige portfolio met foto’s die de fotograaf tussen 1966 en 1974 maakte gedurende verschillende roadtrips door de zuidelijke staten van Amerika. De tentoonstelling bevat een aantal iconische werken, waaronder Egglestons eerste kleurenfoto.”

In hun tuin staat nog de boom waar ze als kind in klommen: schrijfster Steffie van den Oord trok door Nederland en interviewde honkvaste ouderen. Tekst: Evelien van Veen. Foto’s: Marie Wanders  

John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’

“One of Berger’s most defining characteristics was his capacity for paying attention. “If I am a storyteller, it’s because I listen,” Berger said. “Stories come to you all the time if you listen…” The stories he found often came from encounters with unexpected individuals – a country doctor of A Fortunate Man, the peasants alongside whom he lived for decades in the French Alps – which he converted into books that explored the biggest questions of life. In perhaps his most celebrated work, the book and TV series Ways of Seeing, he elucidated a new perspective on the experience of art, opening up an opaque world for the consumption and pleasure of a new audience. And even as the credits were rolling, he undercut his role of expert – exhorting viewers and readers not to take his ideas as gospel. “What I’ve shown, and what I’ve said… must be judged against your own experience”. He enacted complete freedom in his work, and advocated it for others.

Berger became one of the most admired writers and art critics of his age, yet his life remained largely unchanged by fame and adulation. He tried to live in the present moment as “an escape from prescriptions, prophecies, consequences and causes,” and used the intense observation allowed by this practice to conjure worlds through quotidian details, and stories informed by immediate concerns. In a similar way, life’s small details gave him inordinate pleasure, defined in his description to the Paris Review of swimming in public pools. “As swimmers we share a kind of egalitarian anonymity. No shoes, no marks of rank, just our swimming costumes. If you accidentally touch another swimmer while passing him or her, you offer an apology. The limitless cruelty towards others like ourselves, the cruelty of which we are capable when we are regimented and indoctrinated, is difficult to imagine here.” Here, as in the rest of his life, the stories were in the details. And the pleasures were there too. ”

- Trish Wigley, AnotherMag, Januari 2017

http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/9415/three-life-lessons-from-john-berger

Hans Aarsman over een KIP-caravan in Irak