All posts tagged: Amsterdams

Ahmet Ögüt Demands That Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum Remove His Work

Ahmet Ögüt Demands That Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum Remove His Work

Published by skeptic

Artist Ahmet Öğüt called on the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to stop showing his installation Bakunin’s Barricade (2015–20), claiming that the institution had failed to allow the work to be used during a protest over Israel’s military action in Gaza. The Art Newspaper first reported the news. Öğüt’s piece, which was acquired by the museum in 2020, is a barricade-like structure roughly the size of a small gallery space that was assembled from wrecked car, fencing, and other materials. Öğüt constructed it based on ideas circulated by the Russian dissident Mikhail Bakunin, who, during the 1849 Dresden uprising in Germany, called for the use of valuable paintings as shields on barricades, believing they would deter soldiers who would be afraid to destroy artworks. Related Articles When Bakunin’s Barricade has been shown in other venues, the wall text accompanying the piece has mentioned that it can be requested for usage in protests. “A loan contact, prepared in collaboration with a lawyer, stipulates that the barricade may be requested and deployed during extreme economic, social, political, transformative …

Israeli president sparks protests in visit to Amsterdam’s new Holocaust museum – POLITICO

Israeli president sparks protests in visit to Amsterdam’s new Holocaust museum – POLITICO

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Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to the Netherlands’ first National Holocaust Museum on its opening on Sunday was met by a demonstration protesting the bloodshed in Gaza. The museum’s opening was attended by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, as well as King Willem-Alexander, who gave a speech in Amsterdam’s Portuguese Synagogue before the museum visit on the need to prevent antisemitism. Herzog’s invitation to the ceremony was opposed by protesters critical of the Israeli government’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip following the October 7 attack by Hamas. Dutch newspaper NRC put the number of protesters at “at least a thousand” — with some of them part of a pro-Israel counter-demonstration. According to NRC, the police cordoned off several streets to maintain order. The new museum is located on the site of a former nursery school which helped smuggle hundreds of Jewish children to safety during the German occupation of the country in World War II. Source link

how Amsterdam’s Jews fought back against Nazi occupation in 1941

how Amsterdam’s Jews fought back against Nazi occupation in 1941

Published by skeptic

For his latest film, Occupied City, the British artist Steve McQueen has turned his sights on the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, his home town. McQueen’s documentary is informed by the 2019 book, Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945, by Dutch author and film director – and McQueen’s wife – Bianca Stigter. Film critic Peter Bradshaw has described it as a “monumental survey-meditation” on daily life under German rule. For just over four hours, the camera tracks through modern-day Amsterdam; the voiceover describing the horrors the Nazis perpetrated in its streets, squares and buildings. A prison yard where captured Jews were held is now an open space overlooked by the Hard Rock Cafe. The secret police headquarters is now a school. I have spent four decades researching how Jews responded to Nazi oppression. As detailed in my book Individuals and Small Groups in Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust, Amsterdam was the site of a unique act of defiance on February 9 1941, the day Dutch Nazis attacked the city’s Jewish neighbourhood. A campaign of terror …