
Beaton & Pollock: The New Soft Look 1951
March 1951. A three-page spread on Jackson Pollock was published in Vogue titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look. Sir Cecil Beaton, one of the most praised British portrait photographers ever, had taken the photos in which Pollock’s radical and dazzling…

Berndnaut Smilde: the cloud creator
Images did and still do have an enormous power over the human psyche. As we examine art images in (especially) world religions, one of the most significant symbols used to express the nature of the divine is the cloud. In Mesopotamian, Egyptian…

Cameron Highlands: Malaysia’s little England
Coolly Cameron Highlands The night before we left Kuala Lumpur for the Cameron Highlands, Thomas and I thought it would be a great idea to go ‘clubbing’ in Changkat Bukit Bintang. This avenue resembles to the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat in Amsterdam, which is only…

A splashy OBJECT Rotterdam 2015!
Dive into the world of Contemporary Design Yesterday evening. 7 PM. I almost saw Leonardo on the foredeck shouting out: I’m the king of the Woooooorrrrrrld! Massive Titanic brainwave! Nothing could be further from the truth. What I really saw was the fantastic…

Malaysia, Malaysian Borneo and Bali: the journey
Selamat datang ke Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Honeeeeeey, were going to Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo! What do I need to take with me? A couple of shorts, long pants, but not too much because it is HOT out there! Heels? No of…

Bruges in 24 hours
Untouched by time Bruges is by far the best place in Belgium that preserved its totally ancient appearance with its intricate network of canals. Bruges: Venice of the North. A mega cliche, but oh so true. When you wander through the small streets…

Fondazione Prada opens permanent space in Milan
The ExPRADAmental art of Fondazione Prada Wow, time flies. It’s almost 4 years ago that I graduated with honors for my master’s in Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Amsterdam. My thesis? It’s called: ‘ExPRADAmental Art. The integration of contemporary…

Laurent Chehere’s Flying Houses in Paris
Lift me up to the sky One look at the surrealistic series Flying Houses of Laurent Chehere (1972, Paris) and the Pixar movie UP comes to mind. A movie in which a retired man named Carl ties balloons to his…

Attention all bibliophiles: go to Palácio de Mafra!
Are you a real book lover? Check out the amazing Palácio de Mafra! From Sintra it was a 25-minute drive. It exceeded all my expectations! When you arrive in the petite village of Mafra with all its small houses, you…

Paris versus New York
Vahram Muratyan’s minimalistic visualization of his two loved ones The double-decker macaron from Ladurée next to the honey-sweet cupcake from Magnolia Bakery. Marc Jacobs from Bleecker Street says hi to Karl Lagerfeld in Rue Cambon. Proust’s Le temps retrouvé and…