Amsterdam is currently home to three large-scale, digital art installations that will expand your view and sharpen the senses. Step inside Nxt Museum in North, Fabrique des Lumières in West and Vincent meets Rembrandt in the Center and experience a unique experience of art.
UFO - Unidentified Fluid Other
- Nxt Museum, Asterweg 22, nxtmuseum.com
What happens when we can detach ourselves from the physical world and change form? Curated by Bogomir Doringer, the second exhibition of Nxt Museum - 'UFO - Unidentified Fluid Other' - explores who we are becoming in the virtual world. Social change and technological development allow us to ask questions that short-circuit existing norms to create space for ideas without fixed boundaries. Artists are alert to the first signs of our future digital existence, developers are building metaverse and we are preparing for a new reality with fluid identities in a world seemingly free of fixed social constraints. Who are we and who will we become: Joyfully 'fluid'? Inclusively 'other'? Or still totally 'unknown'.
Pioneering multidisciplinary artists shed light on various possibilities and inevitable dilemmas using new media technologies: from augmented reality and fractal art, to computer programming and 3D sculpting. Visitors will discover a series of never-before-seen large-scale, multi-sensory art installations led by Viatrix, an androgynous avatar (or "Unidentified Fluid Other"). The fringe program includes deep-fakes by Bill Posters and the latest video artwork by Lu Yang in which you become the protagonist of a layered and philosophical video game-like world.
Open since August 2020 and housed in a former production studio in the heart of Amsterdam-North, is Nxt Museum the first museum in the Netherlands dedicated entirely to art, technology, science & sound.
Vincent meets Rembrandt in Noorderkerk
- Noorderkerk, Noordermarkt 44, vincentmeetsrembrandt.com
No other Dutch masters are as famous around the world as Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh. Although at first glance the two artists' oeuvres bear no resemblance, Van Gogh's works were influenced by Rembrandt's. Even while studying, Van Gogh became fascinated by Rembrandt's artistic mentality, coarse brushstrokes and use of light and dark. He could often be found at the Rijksmuseum admiring the 17th-century master's paintings. After his very first visit in 1885 when he was introduced to such works as "The Jewish Bride," he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo, "Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in language."
After four successful months in 2021, the unique 360-degree experience "Vincent Meets Rembrandt" is back on display in the Noorderkerk. Amid a constantly changing canvas on the interior walls of the historic church, visitors can make connections between the works of the two masters.
This special exhibition uses no less than 38 projectors (a total of 311,904,000 pixels) scattered throughout the church. Created by MP Studios from Bulgaria, the experience is the idea of Hennie Jaspers and Marcel Vos, with music composed by Maarten van den Bosch. Dr. Fred Leeman, who worked at the Van Gogh Museum for many years, has historically approved the content.
Gustav Klimt at Atelier des Lumières
- Purification Hall West, 37 Pazzani Street, fabrique-lumieres.com
Last April, Fabrique des Lumières opened in Purification Hall West on the Westergasfabriek grounds. In this new digital art center, visitors can experience immersive exhibitions by classical, modern and contemporary artists. The work of various protagonists from art history comes colorfully to life with the help of advanced technology, light projections and accompanying music.
The opening exhibition, "Gustav Klimt, golden and colorful," showcases the most famous pieces by the Viennese artist and his contemporaries in innovative ways. Experience the golden and brightly colored portraits, landscapes and nudes in an imposing way while being immersed in the imperial Vienna of the late nineteenth century. This will be followed by a short exhibition "Hundertwasser, in the Footsteps of the Vienna Secession. Friedensreich Hundertwasser was strongly influenced by the Wiener Secession - an artists' association founded by Klimt and other Viennese artists in 1897 - and represented an artistic revival of the movement in the twentieth century.
In addition, two other exhibitions by contemporary artists are on display in the art center's studio: "Journey," a digital artwork about photons (one of the elementary particles of light) and "Memories" (about how we use our memory and how this information determines who we are).
All exhibitions are on view through Dec. 31. New programming will follow in 2023. Fabrique des Lumières' exhibitions are accessible to all generations and showcase the architecture of the Purification Hall West, with its seventeen-meter-high walls and 3,800 square meters.