Van Gogh Mile, until 25th April, 2013
Among the anniversaries being celebrated in Amsterdam this year is that of the Van Gogh Museum, which celebrates its 40th anniversary as well as the 160th anniversary of the birth of the Dutch genius and the museum's namesake. The museum has been closed for the past several months due to renovation but will reopen in May like a symbolic birthday cake. The Van Gogh Museum is located on Museumplein next to the Stedelijk Museum and is housed in two separate buildings. The first building, designed by Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld of De Stijl fame, was opened in 1973. The second building, designed in 1999 by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, serves as an exhibition hall and was a gift of the Japan Foundation to Amsterdam. The Van Gogh Museum is home to the largest collection of the artist's work in the world and allows visitors to follow the development of Vincent van Gogh's art from his early Netherlands period to his experiments with light and colour while living in Paris to his expressive Arles (Provence) period, when he painted the famous "Sunflowers".
While the Van Gogh Museum is being renovated, the core of its collection (75 pieces of artwork) can be seen at the Hermitage Amsterdam museum. This exhibition provides a colourful journey into Van Gogh's world, a world that lacked neither madness, nor failed love affairs, nor passion. Here, one can also view some of the many letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo, and his friend Paul Gauguin.
During the last ten years of his life, Van Gogh wrote almost 900 letters to his brother. This collection of correspondence has now been used as a source of inspiration for an unusual art project called the Van Gogh Mile. This 2.2 kilometre-long walking route begins at the Van Gogh Museum and leads to the Hermitage Amsterdam, thereby symbolically linking both institutions. The whole route is marked by a red rope five metres above the ground, stretching from house to house and across streets and canals. In some places it is stretched taut and straight, while in other places it forms jagged zig-zags. The route, created by the multimedia artist Henk Schut, is not so much a story about Van Gogh himself. Instead, it challenges, inspires, and encourages us to look at the world around us in a completely different way; it is about the wonder of art.
Because the Van Gogh Mile crosses so many houses and businesses, permission from more than 242 inhabitants, shops, and organisations had to be received before the route could be created. A special smartphone app devoted to the Van Gogh Mile combines quotes from Van Gogh's letters with images of his paintings and episodes from his life. The route includes nine stops with nine different installations. One stop is at the Rijksmuseum, where visitors are led to reflect upon Rembrandt. Van Gogh felt a special relationship with Rembrandt; his admiration for the great master permeated his whole life, yet he also felt compelled to compete with him. When Van Gogh visited the newly opened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 1885, he is supposed to have said that he would gladly give ten years of his life to sit in front of Rembrandt's "The Jewish Bride" for fourteen days "with barely a crust of dry bread to eat". Van Gogh wrote to his brother, "I've been to Amsterdam this week. I hardly had time to see anything but the museum. Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language. It is with justice that they call Rembrandt magician. That's no easy occupation." The voice reading the texts along the Van Gogh Mile has a hint of alienated melancholy, as if it were coming out of thin air. For example, standing on Magere Brug, the small white wooden bridge across the Amstel River, you suddenly hear someone say, "How much good it does a person if one is in a gloomy mood to walk on the empty beach and look into the grey-green sea with the long white lines of the waves." At first it's hard to even hear where the voice is coming from, but it draws you in, turning your thoughts to something completely different and taking you on a journey to some strange, timeless place.
An old pair of bronze boots hangs unobtrusively from the ceiling of a small store on Kerkstraat (Church Street). At first glance, one may not even notice them. But of course, Van Gogh made several still life paintings of old boots, possibly symbolising the hard life of his contemporaries and also his own difficulties. According to legend, he bought a pair of boots at a flea market with the intention of painting them. But they still seemed too clean and new, so he put them on and took a long walk in the rain. Afterwards, the boots seemed good enough to paint.
Two mothers walk past, pushing retro bicycles with wheelbarrow-like seats for their young children. Kerkstraat was once known as a carriage route, and for a moment it seems to have retained its soul to the present day. Only the decorations have changed.
Van Gogh loved to walk. "Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that's the real way to learn to understand art better and better." He also liked to have everything framed and often used slivers of wood to first put a frame around whatever he wished to paint. Here and there in the galleries and antique shops of Amsterdam we also find framed white canvases. Although not always easy to find, they are also part of the visual and audio installations included on the Van Gogh Mile. For example, the canvas titled "Field" can only be viewed through a small hole in a basement-level window.
In all, it takes about half an hour to walk the Van Gogh Mile. The route is interesting and winds through streets that visitors to the city may otherwise not see or pay such close attention to.
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