Hi there! We're Bill and LeBrie. You're receiving this email because you signed up for Dutch Treat, our twice-monthly newsletter of discoveries while we are living in Amsterdam. If you enjoy the newsletter, forward it to a friend. And if this email was forwarded to you, get your own. 📫

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This Dutch Treat is a rebroadcast of an email LeBrie wrote to her personal list. We both thought you would enjoy it. Now that our summer of adventure is slowing down, expect to see more frequent missives from us. - L+B

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Hi friends,

I spent this summer in Europe and I made it my job to absorb as much art as I could. The work that I find most inspiring celebrates humanity's creativity in unusual ways. Here are 7 discoveries across a range of media (in no particular order) that showed me new possiblities in art and design.

I feel so lucky to have been in the big world to soak all this up. I hope the levity in this work shines through to you.

LeBrie

PS. When I'm looking at art, I'm taking visual notes with my phone, not creating images for an audience in mind. So some of these snapshots are a little rough! Click the links to learn more about the artists and see some professional images.

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Everyday objects by Cubic 3 Design

Ton Hoogerwerf and Gerwin van Vulpen met in art school. From 1981-1995 they designed clocks, dishwear, neckties, fabrics and lots of ambiguous objects under the name Cubic 3 Design. The aesthetic is DIY and full of humor, the content often refers to contemporary issues or design itself. Now kitstchy/funny/upcycled home decor is available to the masses at Target and Urban Outfitters... these are the guys who started it all! I was particularly inspired because they worked in so many mediums, and the items ranged from very punk/raw to quite refined and even mass-produced. Read more on Kunstmuseum Den Haag.​

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Installation of carpets by Jakup Ferri

"The handwoven abstract carpets with geometrical patterns ... are based on Jip Ferri's (the artist's son) Avatar designs from the computer game Animal Crossing. For his textile works Jakup Ferri collaborates with women from Albania and Kosovo. He considers carpet-making and embroidery as techniques of coherence and community building." - official blurb (the emphasis is mine). Here's a sense of the room - the floor and walls were shaped like a skate park and covered with colorful carpets and embroidered tapestries. The 'community building and coherence' that is at the core of this artist's practice extended to the audience - everyone layed on the floor and made friends with each other in this space that felt both ancient (the wool carpets were beautifully made with traditional skills) and modern (the designs exuded a kid's enthusiasm for pixels). More on Biennale Arte.​

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DIY furniture by El Warcha

El Warcha is a Tunisian collective of artists and makers who packed a room full of prototypes of experimental furniture. The room buzzed with possibility and zip ties stuck out from every surface. These prototypes were the result of community workshops where non-artists could come in and build furniture with adhoc materials. "El Warcha’s collaborative design practice ... where knowledge formation does not happen through books, but through the very practice of making as a form of language and a tool for mediation." More on Documenta.

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The embroidery of Britta Marakatt-Labba

The artist Britta Marakatt-Labba was born into a family of reindeer herders in Sápmi, the home to the Sámi Indigenous community. Her embroidery is so fine - just impossibly small stitches that somehow aren't fussy at all. Her tiny stitched snowy scenes feel like creation stories; there's death, murder and wildness too. Above all her work is tender and delicate, without being too precious. She also used sewing machine stitching in an equally innovative way. I have never seen embroidery used like this before. More on Biennale Arte.

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Art of the Game by Francis Alÿs

Since 1999, Francis Alÿs’s has filmed children playing in public spaces. Kids from all over the world doing the hard work of pushing a car tire up a hill to roll down inside of in it, inventing worlds with just a stick and a string. Lucky for you, you don't need a plane ticket to Venice to see it - all the videos from the exhibition are available on Alÿs' website. It is such a great joy to witness the essential human creativity inherent in throwing rocks and wasting time. Watch the videos now.​

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Mind blowing tapestries by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

Oh. My. God. I walked into the building with the largest fabric work I have ever seen and just burst into tears. I was overwhelmed by the scope of this work - the building was lined floor to ceiling with tapestries sewn out of colorful patterned fabric. Małgorzata Mirga-Tas is a Roma artist who based the imagery of this piece on a 500 year old Italian fresco - but her fabric version reimagined it without any Western imagery. This work was skillful, unusual, ambitious and full of heart. This article had a good write-up on the meaning behind the symbolism.

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Krump battle to a 1735 French Opera

In this film by Clément Cogitore, a few dozen krump dancers of various races and genders battle each other to a 1735 opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau. Les Indes Galantes [The Amorous Indies, 2017] is the FIRST TIME performers of African descent danced on the French national stage. Obviously the Krump dancing, an art form created by communities of color in 1990's Los Angeles, is a great contrast to the (white, traditional) opera. I think what really touched me though, is the pathos and skill the performers display - their dance elevates opera and transforms it into something completely new. They demonstrate our shared humanity & creativity across time and culture. Watch the ​perfect mash up.​

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