The hazy images of the first people on the moon were barely sharper than the visual blurs that a television set produced on normal nights. But the knowledge that my father and I were looking directly at this giant leap in the human evolution made an overwhelming impression on me on July 20th, 1969. Fifty […]
Art & Culture
If Beale Street Could Talk brings Baldwin back in the spotlights
The successful Hollywood movie If Beale Street Could Talk brings James Baldwin (1924-1987) back in the centre of the spotlights. The Afro-American author and social critic wrote many essays about racial relations in the sixties and seventies. His work was imitated when Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote Between the world and me in 2015. That pamphlet resembles […]
Johan Bakker | | Art & Culture, literature | essays, Film, If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin, literature, racism, USA | 0 Comments
Xaviera Altena’s colourful, positive and funny illustrations
In the summer of 2018 I came across an eye-catching Loesje poster in the city center of Rotterdam. I was struck by its powerful brightly red illustration and its positive caption: ‘To say what you think, can also be something nice’. I wondered who had created the image. I found out that this was a […]
Johan Bakker | | Art & Culture, Books | art, design, Glastonbury, illustrations, pop art, xaviera altena | 0 Comments
Rembrandt and Britain
The National Galleries Scotland in Edinburgh present a beautiful exhibition of Rembrandt’s work from a British perspective. Rembrandt not only painted British buildings, people can also see little known work like as an (alternative) Reading old woman, a windmill in a landscape that inspired many other artists and beautiful etchings and selfies, a genre that […]
Johan Bakker | | Art & Culture | Amsterdam, art, Edinburgh, Great-Brittain, Leiden, Rembrandt, Scotland, United Kingdom | 0 Comments
Train journey through Scotland
Travelling by public transport often leads to surprises when using unfamiliar routes. The bus ride from Amsterdam Central to Port IJmuiden seems to pass a historic site that has been on my list of places to visit for ages: Ruigoord. A squatted stronghold with an artistic attitude somewhere between hippie visions and punk ideals. Once […]
Johan Bakker | | Art & Culture, Blog, Travel | Ben Nevis, Edinburgh, Fort William, Glasgow, Harry Potter, Indepence, Inverness, Oban, Portree, public transport, Rannoch, Scotland, United Kingdom, Walter Scott | 0 Comments
Pablo Picasso’s Masterpieces
The year 1932 was a wonder year for Pablo Picasso. In 366 days he made hundreds of masterpieces. Museum Tate Modern shows a large selection of the art from that year in the exhibition ‘Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy’. Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) regarded his visual art as his diary. Even if you […]
Johan Bakker | | Art & Culture | art, contemporary art, Marie-Therese Walter, modern art, Pablo Picasso, Paris, Picasso, Tate Modern | 0 Comments