Ruimte Festival @ ADM Amsterdam

I wanted to get the history of ADM, the squat I visited, which is to date the greatest squat I have ever seen, but it gets confusing. Or at least it did for me.

On Saturday I spoke with three people associated with ADM. One I met next to a massive pile of rubbish full of things any one could take. It was full of various bicycles in various states, including a rusted up stationary bicycle.

What I learned by the junk pile was that the owner of the property being squatted by ADM was assassinated. Though after talking to the one person who I knew through a friend, they're not sure this juicy tidbit is actually true. Other things I learned by the junk pile but failed to confirm when I talked to the guy who was working security at the front gate is that ADM has been around for 12 years (not 20) and that while they may not accept new squatters, if you have a history with the residents, it's still possible to live there.

(I suppose I should mention now that the guy working security was also tripping on 6 tabs of LSD.)

Now how I got to the Ruimte Festival was interesting (and frustrating). I originally booked a boat through an evironmental agency that squats their boat at the ADM "terrein" (terrain), but although I searched the back of Centraal Station for about 45 minutes I couldn't find it, so I decided to take the other option which was to take the train from Centraal to Sloterdijk and then take the "pendelbus" (shuttlebus) the ADM people had organised for 2,00 euros.

I walked all the way back through Centraal Station to the information center, but the guy didn't seem to understand me. Thankfully the guy right behind me was going to the festival too. Not only did he help me buy my ticket, he also let me use his Dutch discount card to buy it, and hung out with me for a few hours at the festival while he filmed his friends, a boy/girl rapping duo called Fuego, but he also swiped me some apple juice and a stroopwafel from the treats table in the backstage area of the musicians.

I also met some cool 20-somethings from Ghent, Belgium who had come up in one of the guy's grandmother's Volvo. They had to have the car back to grandma by 6 pm on Sunday, but I gave them my mobile number in case they came back. Pieter et Wallit (the name of two of the guys in the band) rocked the house.

Now I cannot possibly explain the ADM terrein to you properly. But here are the highlights in text and pictures:

As if this car wasn't great enough here's the side and the bit inside that first attracted me.

Under the big top.

Pablo & Amelia of Fuego

Pieter et Wallit

Other pictures

All I can say about the ADM Ruimte festival is well, I left at a wimpy hour. It was raining off and on all day and I was ill equipped for the wet and cold. I wish I could have stayed longer, but I didn't have the stamina, so around 12h30, I was back at Centraal Station. Still, despite my inability to party until 5 am I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm not the type to go to parties alone not because I'm rather shy, but I talked to complete strangers.

But that was the vibe. Acceptance, non-conformity, having a good time, and art.

I left wishing the residents of ADM the best. I sincerely hope they're able to keep the place alive, but the only concensus amongst the various people I talked to is that now that squatting has been made illegal in Holland  the future may be bleak for this unique space where there is so much beauty to see that it really took me around 3 hours to notice there was a spaceship right in front of where I'd been standing for 2 of those 3 hours.

It being ADM and being Amsterdam, I admit I inhaled inside the spaceship. If Obama can fess up, I suppose I can too. Did I mention the spaceship had banquet seats inside of (David) Lynch worthy blue velvet?

Dank u wel, ADM! It was lekker!

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Aubrey Beardsley - Dandy

I recently found out that I technically share a birthday (21 August) with Aubrey Beardsley (I say technically because I was actually born the 16th of August, but my birth certificate says the 21st), with whom my association started with finding an editon of The Yellow Book that he started along with Henry Harland. Little did I know he would prove to be so fascinating a subject.

Beardsley was a leading member of the Aestheticism movement along with Oscar Wilde and Whistler. Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement placed aesthetic values above all others - the nature of beauty, art, taste, and creation of beautiful things were all the Asthetes cared about. Society and politics held no interest for them. It was all about decadence

This isn't the Yellow Book I have, I have the same cover but it's a selection of bits from the various editions of The Yellow Book. Beardsley designed the yellow cover when he served as the quarterly's first art director. If you ever spot one, snap it up. They are on my list of books I'm always on the look out for. I would love to own an entire collection.

Image courtesy of Nothing Elegant.

Beardsley was fabulous. He was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era (which I imagine must really mean something) because he hung out with openly homosexual Oscar Wilde and made erotic drawings. The truth is no one knew if Beardsley was straight or not. That he loved his work and only his work seems to be the generous consensus now (via biographers) and then (even Wilde himself thought Beardsley had time "for neither ladies nor lads").

Beardsley illustrations along with his French counterpart Toulouse-Latrec are the epitome of Art Nouveau til this day. And the proof is in how many people claim to be inspired by Aubrey Beardsley - his life, his work, his dandyism, his philosophy, his literature.

Djuna Barnes, authoress, claimed that Beardsley inspired her illustrations. Beardsley has been hugely influential to people in fashion. Vivienne Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, Paul Poiret, and Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Lacroix have all claimed Beardsley an inspiration at one point or another.

Illustration by Djuna Barnes from the Ladies' Almanack.

But what can I say about Aubrey Beardsley that wasn't better said by Oscar Wilde himself? Beardsley wasn't just an artist, he was a damn fine writer too. A real wit. As for the rest, let the Asthete have his say:

"Superbly premature as the flowering of his genius was, still he had immense development, and had not sounded his last stop. There were great possibilities in the cavern of his soul, and there is something macabre and tragic in the fact that one who added another terror to life should have died at the age of a flower." Oscar Wilde

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A Major Score, Handmade Reproduction Tapestry "Lady of the Unicorn"

I have never seen the famous "Lady of the Unicorn" (La Dame à la licorne) at the Cluny Museum in Paris, but now I definitely will. With my beloved La Chienne not feeling well I needed some beauty in my life and so I headed to my favorite brocante in Paris, on the Quai de la Seine, for much needed retail therapy.

There it was high on the wall and immediately I was charmed, but I have not been the only one to be forever changed by the beauty of these six tapestries. Authors George Sand, Jean Genet, and even J.K. Rowling (the tapestries are hanging in the fictional Gryffidor common room) were also enchanted.

"If something happens," I said to myself, "it will be the appearance of a unicorn. Such a place and a such a place can only produce a unicorn." Jean Genet, A Thief's Journal

Not being one to resist impulse when enchanted, I promptly asked if it could be brought down from the wall. The kind salesman, who knows us well I think, climbed over a few pieces of furniture in order to get to it . A quick inspection revealed that this was not an ordinary run-of-the-mill reproduction. It was obviously made by hand and in high quality wool fibers. The colors are deep and bright and the condition was nearly immaculate and what wasn't could be easily cured with a gentle vacuuming. The previous owner or maker pre-stretched on to a canvas frame with a wire for hanging and GRANDSARD signed on the back.

This made me curious. After a quick Google.fr search turned up two GRANDSARDs who were heavily involved in tapestry making, though I was unable to discover to what degree.

Being an ebay junky I immediately searched ebay to see how much of a bargain the beautiful tapestry really was. I paid 50,00 euros for my new treasure. Ebay.fr has many reproductions, but nothing handmade for less than ten times the price.

The Lady of the Unicorn tapestries that hang in the Cluny Museum in Paris are full of symbols, some from alchemy, and each of the six tapestries has a specific meaning. Five represent the senses and the sixth known as "Mon seul desir" (My only desire). My new treasure represents "Sight" and what a beautiful sight it is!

The original six tapestries, Cluny Musuem Paris

Lady of the Unicorn Tapestry, "Sight"

The treasure, probably to be placed over the bed.

Lion detail on my tapestry.

Lady and the Unicorn detail.

Rabbit and Fox.

Good dog.

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