Capital A: a new yearly visual arts festival in Amsterdam

Amsterdam offers a unique concentration of top artist residences, renowned art organizations and museums, and combines this with a fierce underground scene. Capital A is a new initiative that aims to open up the city’s contemporary art scene to an (inter)national audience. The climax of the initiative is the yearly 3 Days of A. Non-fiction is responsible for the programme and the (online) communication.

 Capital A will be omnipresent (image taken from brand concept Capital A © Vandejong, 29 juli 2011)

The first 3 Days of A takes place from 25–27 November 2011, at various locations throughout the city, all in walking distance. The the website (www.cap-a.nl)is currently being developed and will include an extensive (visual) arts agenda. Throughout the year this website is also the central meeting place for everyone with an interest in contemporary art.

3 Days of A takes place simultaneously with the Open Studios of artists at the Rijksakademie and De Ateliers, as an integral part of the weekend. Prominent Amsterdam galleries, art institutions and museums present themselves for an entire weekend with exhibitions, artist performances and lectures of well known artists and curators, all in an exciting and unconventional way.

Capital A is a joint initiative of the Rijksakademie, Gallery Fons Welters and Gallery Martin van Zomeren and three Dutch private collectors. Fons Hof, co-founder of the international contemporary art fair Art Rotterdam has been appointed director and creative communications agency Vandejong will develop the on- and offline campaign that will play with the letter ‘A’.

© Vandejong

Participants are a.o.: artists, De Rijksakademie, De Ateliers, Stedelijk Museum, Foam, Manifesta, De Appel, Smart Project Space, NIMK, Kunstverein, Salon/Magazijn, Galerie Fons Welters, Galerie Paul Andriesse, Diana Stigter, GRIMM Gallery, Slewe, Van Zoetendaal, Jeanine Hofland Contemporary Art, Ron Mandos, Gerhard Hofland, Vous Etes Ici, Van Krimpen, Juliette Jongma, Annet Gelink Gallery, Martin van Zomeren.

The central hub of this weekend is Tommy Hilfiger’s People’s Place at the Stadhouderskade. On show an exceedingly strong programme, with the highlights of Amsterdam art. The theme is: The Future of Art. Curators of this programme are the founders of Non-fiction Michiel van Iersel and Juha van ‘t Zelfde.

The complete program will be launched here in September 2011.

© Vandejong

The networked museum marathon

Here is a first reaction after our 5 hour interview marathon that took place during last Saturday’s Amsterdam museumnacht. We first would like to thank all our guests from the various institutions, our visitors in De Verdieping, and the n8 organisation for kindly letting us participate in the 10th museumnacht. We are very happy with the start of this ongoing discussion on the (changing) role of museums in 21st century cities, and the influence of networked urban environments on museums. We will take our time to write up a summary of the event, and hope to update soon.

Curating the city, a museumnacht marathon on metropolitan museums, responsive heritage and the city as cultural platform

Doug Aitken's Sleepwalker was projected on the exterior walls of the MoMA

This Saturday the 10th annual museumnacht (museum night) will be organised in our hometown Amsterdam. Non-fiction will take part with a special marathon on museums and the city, in their basecamp De Verdieping. A wide group of institutions, designers and thinkers will join us at the table to discuss how pervasive urban museums are, and how the city can become a interactive museosphere.

The programme starts at 7 pm and goes on to 12, after which Viral Radio will take over with wall-surpassing bass and rhythm collections compiled by Juha & Cinnaman with Mamiko Motto. Outside, the facade of the building will be used as an urban screen for the duration of the museumnacht by students of MediaLAB Amsterdam. Inside, artists Amie Dicke and Sarah van Sonsbeeck will host the workshop ‘Build your own mobile museum’.

Tickets are available through n8.nl, make sure you get them soon: the previous 7 editions sold out before the start.

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Programme:

19 – 00 Interview Marathon >> with Michiel van Iersel and Juha van ‘t Zelfde
We will navigate through the night together with our guests, visitors, Hyvers and Twitterati, to try to articulate the future of museums in the city.

19 – 20 MyMuseum >> Blikopeners, Zichtbaar Afwezig and Urban Screens
Students of the Rietveld, Sandberg, UvA and HvA will talk about appropriating, editing and remixing the museum.

20 – 21 Museums And The City >> Stedelijk Museum
Curators Bart Rutten, Leontine Coelewij and Marten Jongema will look back at Stedelijk in de Stad and will look ahead towards a new Stedelijk Museum.

21 – 2 The Mobile Museum >> De Appel, Platform21/Supermaker, NIMk, Mediamatic
Representatives of various art institutions in Amsterdam will talk about their transient adventures in pop-up structures and mobile pavillions.

22 – 23 The Digital City >> VURB, The Mobile City, Nationaal Historisch Museum, Habbekrats
Now things will get unphysical, with VURB and The Mobile City talking about urban informatics and the city as an interaction platform. The Nationaal Historisch Museum will talk about being a distributed museum, and design firm Habbekrats will elaborate on how cities are embedded in (music) videos on YouTube.

23 – 00 Museum = City >> everybody everywhere
How will the museums in the future inhabit the city? How can it go beyond its walls? What is a museum without a building? How can visitors become users and producers of a museum? Can a city be a museum? These questions will be addressed in the round-up discussion with all logged in.

00 – 05 Viral Radio x Beat Dimensions >> Juha & Cinnaman and Mamiko Motto.
Rhythmculture, bass experimentation and computer improvisation to ground the night after such abstraction. With Amsterdam’s digital duo Juha & Cinnaman, and the one-woman social music revolution Mamiko Motto.