Cultural Highlights in Amsterdam – Summer / Fall 2007
Just Opened, New Museum!
The Museum of Bags and Purses, which opened in June, is a unique museum that through its collection of over 3500 bags and accessoriesshows the history of the ladies bag in Western culture. The museum is located in a magnificent 17th century building along a canal.
www.tassenmuseum.nl
July 13 – 15, 2007 — North Sea Jazz Festival – Ahoy, Rotterdam One of the greatest jazz events in the world, featuring top jazz musicians as well as blues, soul, R&B, crossover and world-music artists.
www.northseajazz.nl
August 11 – 19, 2007 — Canal Festival (Grachten Festival) – Amsterdam
A summer spectacle for music lovers, filling the Amsterdam summer evenings with classical music. Large crowds of people will gather in thecity center to enjoy the free classical concerts on and around the Amsterdam canals. Highlight is the Prinsengracht concert which takes place in front of the Pulitzer hotel.
www.grachtenfestival.nl
October 13, 2007 – May 5, 2008 — Hermitage Amsterdam – Art Nouveau
St Petersburg is often seen as the city of Peter and Catherine the Great, a place full of palaces with art from the 17th and 18th centuries. But the city also took part in the European art movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This was certainly the case with the 'new styles' that conquered Europe around 1900: Jugendstil, the Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau found an echo in the city on the Neva. The new art of France was particularly appreciated. The people of St Petersburg bought the striking French works and had their houses remodeled in the new style; Russian artists created their own version of it. The last Tsar and Tsarina, Nicholas and Alexandra, were keen followers of the new fashion. In an unusual exhibition the Hermitage Amsterdam is presenting the best of French and Russian Art Nouveau. www.hermitage.nl
Cultural Highlights in Brussels – Summer / Fall 2007
September 14, 2007 – January 27, 2008 — Royal Museums of Fine Arts
Rubens, a Genius at Work
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels are staging a major Rubens exhibition this autumn. The exhibition will include some 50 works by the baroque artist that are already in Belgium. Works that the Antwerp painter produced together with other masters including Jan Brueghel the Elder and Cornelis de Vos will also be on show.
Some sixty paintings and drawings will be on loan from museums abroad, including the Paris Louvre, the Prado in Madrid and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The exhibition hopes to give the general public greater insight into the way Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and his peers created their most famous works.
www.fine-arts-museum.be/site/EN/frames/F_expo.html
August 8, 2007 – March 3, 2008 — Basilica of Koekelberg, Brussels
Leonardo Da Vinci "“ The European Genius
In the magnificent setting of the Basilica of Koekelberg from August 18, 2007 through March 15, 2008 visitors can discover Leonardo Da Vinci, the inventor and thinker. The exhibition will show original documents, scale models, notebooks as well as several of Leonardo's inventions. The exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Rome and is co produced by « Europa 50 » and the European Commission.
www.expo-davinci.eu
The Belgian Museum for Comic Strip Art, Brussels
As Tintin, the boy reporter goes Hollywood discover what Belgians consider the ninth art. The Smurfs, Tintin, Snowy and Marsupilami are all animated characters that have sprouted from the imagination of Belgian cartoonists.
The Waucquez Warehouses, home of the Belgian Museum for Comic Strip Art, is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the most famous Belgian Art Nouveau architect, Victor Horta.
And here the latest news about Tintin, Belgium’s most famous comic strip hero: Fans of the boy reporter will finally see their wish come true. None other than Steven Spielberg and his company DreamWorks – together with Peter Jackson of “The Lord of the Rings” – have committed to produce three back to back feature movies about three of the many adventures of Tintin and his dog Snowy. The first film could be in the theaters in two years. Meanwhile, Tintin fans can find out more about Tintin and his friends here:
www.visitbelgium.com/mediaroom/AnniversaryofHerge.htm
Cultural Highlights in Cologne – Summer / Fall 2007
July 14, 2007 — Kölner Lichter – Fireworks on the Rhine
On July 14th Germany's largest high-altitude and synchronized-music firework will again illuminate the sky. With its special atmosphere, the event attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to Cologne every year.
www.cologne-tourism.de
August 18 – November 4, 2007 — Balthus – Time suspended. Paintings and Drawings 1932 to 1960.
In Autumn of 2007 the Museum Ludwig will show an exhibition of selected works by the French artist Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski, born to German parents, 1908 – 2001.) Preceding the hundredth anniversary of Balthus's birth by one year, it will be the first show devoted to the artist in Germany. Balthus's first exhibition at the Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1934 was what the period liked to call a "scandal," and just what he had intended. In his handful of large paintings he subverted familiar subjects "“ a girl at a window, in front of a mirror, at her toilet or receiving a music lesson "“ by turning them into scenes of hard-edged eroticism with a strongly sadomasochistic undercurrent. After Edward Hopper and Salvador DalÃ, with this show the Museum Ludwig continues the series of monographical exhibitions devoted to great painters of the 20th century.
www.museenkoeln.de/english/museum-ludwig/
September 7 – November 17, 2007 — Hotel California "“ Dolron & Wrede in a Dialogue
From theme park to martyrdom and paradise with a fakir "“ the exhibition Hotel California at the Wallraff-Richartz museum Cologne sends the visitor on an emotional roller-coaster ride between heaven and hell "“ this is the essence of a project in which medieval painting and prints from the early Baroque period are confronted with works by these contemporary photo-artists Desiree Dolron and Thomas Wrede.
www.museenkoeln.de/english/wallraf-richartz-museum
September 28, 2007 – January 6, 2008 — Chargesheimer. A Bohemian from Cologne in the Post-War Days
This exhibition at the Ludwig Museum Cologne will present a broad and extensive picture of the "Life and Work" of this Cologne photographer and artist, showing many of the facets of Chargesheimer's work and analyzing it against the backdrop of the cultural history of the period after 1945. Apart from his large estate, which is in the keeping of Museum Ludwig, it has been possible to track down a large number of documents and photographs for this exhibition that had previously remained in total obscurity.
www.museenkoeln.de/english/museum-ludwig/
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