Great wall of boxes

On my days in the city i love to chill for a bit in Washington Square Park. I like the whole vibe there. Walking out of the (east side) of the park the other day i passed Washington Square Windows.
(making pictures through a window on a very sunny day; not the best idea; won't come out as your best photos)

I was pleasantly surprised by three large window filled with all these great 'boxes' of art by Jon Lee.
(if you want to see them yourself, hurry up, this exhibit has been there since June 1st already and will only last through August 13th!)

Lee began as a graffiti artist fusing urban elements in his art. "There is something about the raw and pure energy, not to mention the dedication put into street art that makes me enjoy the medium so much. I take this fresh energy and explode onto canvases almost in the same [way] I would a wall--using the same materials I would outdoors. Aerosol, latex, hand-cut stencils and marker are layered, and then combined with more traditional methods of art and design.... My backgrounds are mixtures of paint dripping, splashing and dropping.... To the foregrounds I add dominant shapes and objects--taking control of the reality--making my mark."

Some more NY streetart, you know i'm always on the lookout for creatures on the walls. Geek, Plasmaslug and Oxy.

I'm part of the expo!

Not my creative work, but my persona is. I told about the expo in another post before.
Yesterday was the opening and it was a success. Lot of people showed up and while it was raining outside, inside it was nice and cozy. We got some unidentifiable green drinks as a welcome when you arrived. Tasted nice. But i heard somebody name it Dreft (that's a brand of a green dishwashing liquid). hihi. Didn't taste like dishwashing liquid!
There were some speeches, but mostly it was walking around, looking at the pictures, talking to friends and strangers. It was a good afternoon.
The whole exposition derived from the book 'Door Blauwe Ogen' (talked 'bout that before too) written by one of my girls. I was already proud of her, but yesterday she earned a new star of pride. Good job girl!
And you know what? She has just started a weblog, and i would love it if she would hang around for a little while with all her cool ideas, projects and creativity. So, Harimau Kecil, also known as Kasumi, welcome to blog land! Visit her blog if you have a spare second, maybe even leave her a comment one day. Let's get her hooked on this blogging thing too!

New Asian Expo

If you find yourself in the area of Amsterdam on June 25th, get yourself of the couch and get to the restaurant 'Kantjil & the Tiger' in the Spuistraat. The New Asian Exposition will be opened that day. It is a presentation of the book and the portraits from 'Door blauwe ogen' which i talked about in a previous post.

If you can't make it to the opening, go visit on another date, have a nice Indonesian dinner and enjoy the photographs and stories then.

Expo: Hamsterclub's Garagesale

Shame on me. I haven't even mentioned I went to the Hamsterclub expo this Easter weekend. I had read about it in the Weekly Amsterdam guides and just had to go.











I loved the art that was displayed. A treat for my eyes. I got so much inspiration from it. I love the works of Leendert Masselink. But there were many other works which I would have loved to buy. And even with it being a 'garage sale' and prices were really reasonable, art is still a luxury which I currently can't afford right now. But oh, how I wanted to scream out, I want this one, and that one, could you wrap that one for me too?
Maybe one rich day in the future.

Behind Blythe in New York City

Oh I wish I was in New York already. I would have gone to the Behind Blythe exhibition today!

For those of you who are currently in the area, here's the info.
Behind Blythe is an exhibition of the revival of Blythe dolls with photographs by official Blythe photographer Gina Garan. Find out more about the rebirth of Blythe that began in Asia and has grown into a world wide phenomenon. Blythe producer Junko Wong from Tokyo will be on hand to sign autographs, with New York's own Blythe photographer Gina Garan! Be sure to bring your Blythe and camera for this exciting event!

March 3rd to March 17th
The Showroom NYC - Toy Tokyo
117 2nd Avenue 2nd Floor NYC, NY

Amsterdam is so beautiful

We had a friend over from Miami for a long weekend. It was good to see her again. Me and my man have stayed with her before when she was still living in Brooklyn. We took her all around town and had a great time. It got me acting all tourist like. Making pictures of everything that i see everyday, but not always taking the time out to realize just how pretty it looks.


Ooh.. i think the church on Dam square is looking so beautiful with the lighting and the red 'Indonesia' banners! Just had to make a picture. I haven't been to the exhibition yet. But it's high up on my to-do list. It runs till April so i must be able to find a good afternoon to go to the church.

From the Nieuwe Kerk website:
'Indonesia: the discovery of the past'. It consists of over 300 masterpieces from the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta and the National Museum of Ethnology (Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde) in Leiden. On display will be six large sculptures from the Singasari period (13th century), important gold finds and palace treasures from Sulawesi, Lombok and Bali, as well as unique ethnographica from West and East Indonesia, including New Guinea. Much of the material has never been exhibited before. The recently discovered Wonoboyo gold treasure also receives attention.
The exhibition presents the history of the collection and distribution of the Indonesian heritage brought together by the Batavian Society. This society's collection grew as a result of scientific and military expeditions, the passions of individual collectors such as governors and missionaries, and gifts from princes and sultans to the Dutch royal family or Indonesian rulers. The collection includes gold and other jewellery, buddha's, sculptures, krises and wayang puppets. From 1862 official policy was to divide collections between two institutions: the Museum Nasional in Jakarta and the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. This is the first time that the collections have been brought back together again, for an exhibition in Jakarta (opening on 15 August) and then at The Nieuwe Kerk.
In total some 330 objects will be on view, 160 from Indonesia and 170 from the Netherlands, which are both archaeological and anthropological. The two museums in Leiden and Jakarta have the two largest and finest collections of the Indonesian heritage in the world. In this exhibition these collections will be brought together for the first time. After the shared colonial past, in which the collection was assembled but also divided between the two museums, the exhibition now puts the accent on the new cooperation and connection between Indonesia and the Netherlands as equal partners.