The
Parisian street artist populating the planet with mutant alien murals

by Anna J. Kutor

Steeped in its turbulent history, Krakow may well be Central
Europe’s most evocative city. It is a fascinatingly atmospheric, culturally
vibrant place bustling with idiosyncratic character and old-world charm.
There’s plenty to explore in Poland’s cultural capital, says Anna J. Kutor

Nearly hidden among the dingy downtown structures that formerly housed the city’s
first shopping centre, the storefronts of the Belgrade Design District are now
shining bright with contemporary design works by a new creative crop of
artists. Cheekily theatrical clothing, futuristic jewellery and refined
interior design object all find their place among the 30 some boutiques forming
the split-level design hub. Together these brands aren’t merely a platform for
locally grown creativity; they are paving the way for a new era in Serbian
design.

A field guide to Amsterdam’s avant-garde cultural enclaves and artistic landmarks -
some edgy, others extravagant, but all awash in attitude.

by Anna J. Kutor

Few places in the world embrace progressive art and design with the fervor of Amsterdam,
a city overflowing prestigious museums and trendy galleries. Institutions
housing Dutch colonial artefacts, wax figures and the works of the Great
Ear-Mutulated Master (aka Van Gogh) are crowd-drawing mainstays, but the
staying power of Amsterdam’s artistic prominence can also be attributed to
experimental art spaces and off-the-beaten-track landmarks.

Take the incumbent artistic hotbed of Westergasfabriek. A
poster child of creative renewal, this sprawling art and culture park was converted
from a derelict and decaying 19th-century gasworks site on the city’s western
fringe. Its renovated brick-and-metal structures now house canal-side
restaurants, offbeat art galleries, a food-design studio and the art-house
cinema Ketelhuis. On the north side of the campus, the massive cylindrical
Gasometer building plays host to a variety of large-scale exhibitions and
festivals, including Awakening’s all-night rave (October 2) and the Affordable
Art Fair (Oct 29-Nov 1).

Another industrial wasteland treated to a cultural makeover is the NDSM shipyard on the northern banks of the IJ-Canal, a ten-minute ferry ride from the back of the central train station. On the outside, the premises remain
largely unaltered expect for bold swaths of graffiti and a few life-sized
Easter Island statues, but free-spirited artistic expression explodes within
the ironclad warehouses. A collaborative breeding ground for emerging talent,
the shabby-chic halls house over 250 independent artists, designers, architectural
firms and theater groups, many crafting projects on-site. Besides these small
clusters of Bohemian activity, concerts, performances and festivals are
frequently held on the grounds, including the whimsical Storytelling Festival.

Clever Conglomerate

“Artists now are hungry for action. There is a need to participate, to collaborate and
to be part of something bigger than themselves,” says Thomas Peutz,
director of SMART Project Space, a multi-genre arts center located inside a former pathological anatomical laboratory in Oud-West. At the vanguard of cutting-edge experimental art since its inception in 1994,
this hybrid creative domain is a collaborative artist-incubator that stimulates
the exchange of ideas across artistic boundaries. You won’t see any watercolors of quaint villages or even diamond-encrusted skulls here; instead
you’ll find a group show focusing on the practices of accumulating various
materials (through October 25), music clips that question our social
conditioning and a mockumentary of various phobias. And this is only a fraction
of the unrestrained experimentation spread throughout the centers exhibition
and music production spaces, two cinemas and artist-in-residence studios. Peutz
adds:”Alternative art spaces tend to become the pulsing heart of a city, a
place of stimulation, refreshment and adventure, which reaches out beyond the
confines of its walls to involve those in the city and far beyond.”

Urban Display

Blurring the frontier between private and public art domains, some of the most fun and
forward-looking art installations are popping up on street corners instead of
showrooms. Alongside the vibrant mish-mash of innovative graffiti and murals,
Amsterdam’s most unusual layers of urban artistry are the Lego patchworks of
German artist Jan Vormann. As part of the ongoing “Repairing” project
by Platform 21, an eclectic design foundation, the clever
young handyman has mended doorposts, crumbling corners and wall cracks with the
famous brightly-colored plastic building blocks.

This fall, Amsterdam’s street-side showground expands with a number of boundary-pushing
and bizarre additions thanks to ArtZuid, an outdoor sculpture
show running until 26 October. Vibrant geometric shapes, a Pinocchio-inspired
blockhead figure and a giant limbless body are among the forty forms that
appear on the lush green lawns of Apollo- and Minervalaan in the city’s south
side. Abstract as the attraction may be, it bring a new, knock-you-sideways
quality to city’s expanding art spectrum.

Museum Night

Those in need of a late-night culture fix will gobble up the visual feast of
contemporary art during Museum Night on 7 November. Museumnacht, as
it is known, involves more than 40 museums and galleries in the city, all of
which offer a high-octane program of concerts, dance performances, film
screenings and workshops, some going on until 2am. Standout events include record-breaking
athletic stunts at the Olympic Stadium, a mind-warping musical show at the
Planetarium and the Sixties Party of the Year bash in the Amsterdam Historical
Museum.

Longer lasting and far healthier than a 12-course Christmas feast are the hours of pleasure awaiting
food enthusiasts in galleries and museums across the Netherlands. Anna J. Kutor highlights some of these Dutch gastronomic delights

One need only follow their nose to the source of the seductive scent of freshly-baked pastries to locate
the Dutch Bakery Museum in Hattem, a tiny town in the province of Friesland.

This sweet-tooth sanctuary operates in two adjacent buildings - one with a sunny showroom filled with a
baked breads, cakes, savory goodies and soul-warming caffeinated drinks and
the other focusing on the preparation techniques and application of bread, candy, chocolate, pudding and ice cream.

Another nod to the Baking Gods is “The Old Bakery” in the northern Dutch town of Medeblik.
Operating in a small red-brick townhouse since 1988, this small sliver of a
salon bills itself as “the tastiest museum in the Netherlands” and it
might just be that, with mouth-watering displays themed around sugar, marzipan,
chocolate and tools of the trade.

The Big Cheese

Cheese may have been discovered in the Middle East, but the art of cheese-making was perfected in
Holland, so it is here on must come to understand the history and popularity of
this diversified household delicacy.

Bon vivant stores and cheese specialty shops populate nearly every corner of the country, making it easier
to find a slice of cured goodness than a parking spot, but real fromage
fanatiques should head to The Dutch Cheese Museum in Alkmaar where all facets
of cheese productions are explored.

House in a 16th-century weigh-house in the center of the city, the three-level exhibit traces the
evolution of cheese and butter preparation through a collection of authentic
household and new-age factory utensils, clothing, painting and multimedia
imagery alongside a little corner for degustation in the on-site shop.

Focus on Fruit

Health-food fanatics and tree-huggers will want to visit the Orchard Museum in Kapelle, an outdoor
eco-agro exhibit highlighting the ins and outs of cultivating fruit trees from
Roman times to today. There’s also a sizable selection of fruit-picking,
process and pruning machines and a library carrying over 2,00 books, brochures
and magazines on the practice of horticulture.

Equally eco-friendly but a lot more interactive and fun (for the kids under the age of 10) is the
Strawberry Land vast strawberry theme park near Eindhoven, open from April to
October. It’s a charming affair altogether - criss-crossing footpaths,
playgrounds, whimsical houses filled with fresh strawberries and sweet and a
pick-your-own strawberry field.

Liquid Therapy

Dutch alchemists in the 16th century were the first to create jenever, a clear sweet spirit distilled from
grain and malt and flavored with juniper berries.

Arguably, the best place to sample this traditional tipple is at the Jenever Museum in Schiedam. Beyond the
obligatory taste-test, an array of distilling machinery, advertising posters,
packaging materials and glassware depict the rich tradition of the so-called
Dutch gin. The recently-opened House of Bols in Amsterdam celebrates not only
the country’s liquid source of pride but also its oldest distillery brand,
established in 1575.

Part chemical wizardry and part intoxicating journey, this interactive and multi-sensory museum lets
visitors smell, touch and taste their way through the brand’s past and present.