“Some people don't know rock 'n' roll came out the same way rap came out. People would say: No, it will never last.” Big Fun in the Big Town (Bram van Splunteren, 1986)
Aug
11
Hip Hop Day
Run-DMC sitting on a limo with a NYC license plate. We only see their Adidas (and Nikes). Under the car a half-eaten apple.
There's something really peculiarly narrow-minded about the Dutch called “verzuiling”, “pillarisation”; society is split into vertical columns and depending on your background you join certain circles. You play soccer, join a trade union, or listen to the radio in a Catholic, Protestant, or social-democratic context. Deeply socialist, (for you American-styled liberals rather extremely) leftist, and seasoned with a generous dash of subversive underground ánd highbrow culture, Dutch radio and TV broadcaster VPRO belongs to the latter.
When VPRO radiomaker Bram van Splunteren came across Beastie Boys' rock/rap crossover 12” She's On It (from the 1985 #HipHop movie Krush Groove), he knew he was onto something and he would play the Beasties and other rappers on his De Wilde Wereld alongside Oingo Boingo and The Fall.
– Schoolly D
Despite the VPRO boasting about their leftie open-mindedness, Van Splunteren's embrace of such lowbrow, poor people culture (not the right kind of frugal-by-choice types but the low-cultured tracksuit wearing ones) didn't sit well with the broadcaster. Minorities boasting about their accomplishments, their cars, girls, gold? That's got no place in this social-democratic-Lutheran column!
Yet time moved on and Van Splunteren was given a budget to make a TV program about that weird talking-over-drum-machines music. With a small crew that included Belgian comedian/musician Marcel Vanthilt – who would sporadicly rap with his oddball New Beat group Arbeid Adelt! – Van Splunteren explored the music from the then-still predominantly Black neighbourhoods in the Big Town: the Bronx, Harlem, Queens, while Vanthilt interviews everyone available; from a boasting LL Cool J and his grannie to a very green Biz Markie and old old old skoolers The Last Poets.
Over time, this obscure 1986 Dutch TV documentary Big Fun in the Big Town has become an essential snapshot of hip hop culture. It captures an optimism and fire elemental to survive Reagan's America and highlights the urge to continue the Black struggle that the Panthers and others set in motion.
Happy birthday, hip hop. To many more powerful years to come.
Netherlands
“Aaaaap”
“Nooot”
“Miiieees”Het Leesplankje [The Reading Lesson] (Johan van der Keuken, 1973)
Mar
2
National Read Across America Day
Reading board tiles laid out on a newspaper. Half a headline – 7.000 ARRESTANTEN (“7000 DETAINEES”) – can be read. A photograph of a shellshocked, very young soldier in front of a fleeing crowd illustrates the article. DP: Johan van der Keuken.
Amsterdam schoolchildren recite the words from a reading board while the traditional teaching method's pictures are interspersed with news photos of then-current events and children's drawings.
This short, and life, is haunting and violent; schools should be safe for all. Even if only to escape in a book.
“Ik schilder als een barbaar van deze barbaarse tijd.” De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel [The Reality of Karel Appel] (Jan Vrijman, 1962)
Feb
3
American Painters Day
Appel at work. He said about painting “Ik begin vanuit mijn materie, dat is verf.” (“I start from my matter, which is paint.”). DP: Eduard van der Enden.
CoBrA (1948—51) was a Copenhagen / Brussels / Amsterdam art collective whose manifest revolved around the liberation from the rigidity of art and life in drab, post-war Europe. Their spontaneous primal iconography and graffiti allowed them to not only regain the pleasure of painting, but also forge a new connection to colour and material. Especially the Dutch artists involved – Corneille, Appel, Lucebert, Constant – looked at the way children respond to the act of creation resulting in easy to comprehend semi-abstract paintings, sculptures and poems. The moronic “my child can paint that” that people still associate with modernist art can be traced back to (deliberately) misinterpreting these artists' objectives.
– Karel Appel
After CoBrA broke up, Appel started treating his canvas not as something that merely props up an image, but as part of the artwork itself. Working in layers of paint and other media, with any tool at hand, he'd build a sculptural object that incorporates the movement of both artist and material. In order to film De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel, he cut a hole in the canvas through which the camera captures the physicality of the action and the emotional involvement of the artist.
For this film, and Karel Appel, Componist by photographer Ed van der Elsken (1961), Appel (in collaboration with Frits Weiland) composed tape loops to create a wall of sound complementing the image.