Liverpool, Tate Museum, June 15th 2019
After being Keith Haring’s studio manager for over six years, Julia Gruen was entrusted to take the helm and lead the Keith Haring Foundation, which was established by Keith himself in 1989. Following Keith’s insights on how to balance the showcase of his art with the commercialization of his images, Julia ensure that his foundation is self-sustaining and able to keep on providing financial support to HIV organizations –as per Haring’s last wishes.
All I ever heard about this harbour city is that, after being bombed flat during WW2, Rotterdam was completely rebuilt by some visionary architects who made it the modern and out-of-the-way urban jungle that it is today.
Crossing its wide, busy roads feels like walking through a city; the water surfaces (which are usually so large I won’t call them ‘canals’) reflecting the skyscrapers blinking lights at night look like the open sky dotted with stars.
Since the moment I first stepped into Utrech from the back of the train station, I felt ‘something different’ hovering in the crisp winter air. It was something I haven’t ever experienced in Amsterdam, something tangible in the streets and – yet – seemingly impossible to pinpoint.
When I asked locals what’s giving Ghent its edge, they all replied that Ghent is a rebellious city. I’ve spoken with artists, students and middle-aged people from different backgrounds and interests and, although each one understood this trait slightly differently -stubbornness, vanguard, insurgency, critical thought, independence, unconventionality-, they all agreed in portraying Ghent as a city that can’t be -and won’t be- anyhow controlled.
Amsterdam is unlike any other city for the Iranian activist-artist brothers Icy & Sot.
Amsterdam is where they had their first solo exhibition abroad in 2011, taking their first step into the international art scene. It was an internationally acclaimed first step at that, which eventually let them to escape the persecution and censorship they experienced in their home country.