Author: Grubb

In 1955 a famous photography exhibition opened at MOMA in New York called “The Family of Man”.  The FENIX has a space divided into hanging panels displaying 200 enlarged photographs called the Family of Migrants depicting the story of migration. Some of them are recognizable masterworks like Dorothea Lange’s migrant mother escaping the Dust Bowl, and…

When it comes to migration there is always a fantasy of the final trip. The Ghanaian artist Paa Joe (Joseph Tetteh Ashong) is known for his elaborate coffins shaped like objects connected to a person’s life. The one on exhibit at the FENIX seems like a signature Albuquerque goodbye box.  Functional as well as an…

One of the themes throughout the Migration exhibit at the FENIX was the fortification of borders and the closing of frontiers. We’re talking a very contemporary museum. Shilpa Gupta’s “Gate” got a lot of attention. This heavy metal gate mounted beside a wall suddenly swings shut and slams against the wall every thirty minutes. When…

In one of the convention center size rooms making up the Migrant exhibit at the FENIX is a bus made out of fabric that visitors can walk into. The Bus is the work of an American artist named Red Grooms. Red is from Nashville. He’s estimated that he has traveled by bus twenty-four times to…

Ella’s already given you an introduction to the FENIX and the exhibit on the first floor of luggage that has traveled through Rotterdam in the last hundred years. The narrative that went with a suitcase that I enjoyed was the one where a gay guy from Rotterdam in the the 1920s made it a habit…

Inside the SS Rotterdam there were tipsy ghosts in full-skirted flower-patterned gowns serenaded by Frank Sinatra.  They sat on squat chairs designed for bustles to be draped over the back. Outside, on the deck, the promenading ghosts seemed to have been whisked away by the chill weather, but the stiff breeze offered an opportunity to get…

Back before there were cruise ships to luxuriate on while crossing the Atlantic, there were Ocean Liners. Like we saw in “The Titanic” or “The Poseidon Adventure.” Primitive compared to the wedding cake cities that tour the globe nowadays offering Broadway musicals and topical lectures, but still impressive if you think of the parties that…

On the edge of Eendrachtsplein in Rotterdam is a sculpture made by Paul McCarthy in 2001. He called it Santa Claus. Since then it has been popularly nicknamed “Kabouter Buttplug” or the “Buttplug Gnome.” McCarthy said the object is officially a stylized Christmas tree and meant to be a comment on consumer culture. Maybe if…

Every time we visit Rotterdam we try to check out the latest cultural collections. The port city has a lot huge old style warehouses made vacant by the stacks of shipping containers on the docks. Empty warehouses, like abandoned banks, make great music venues and museums. Yesterday, after we checked into our hotel, we took…

Lately on our travels I’ve become more aware of stores selling antiques. In the past they were just places I passed without much consideration. I was on a quest for the perfect pastry, the sublime work of art. But I’m becoming more doubtful I’ll find that melt-in-the-mouth non-flaking pastry, or be struck by an unanticipated…

Delft Blue is a style of pottery renowned for its white surface painted with cobalt blue, a pigment that withstands very high kiln temperatures without fading. It gained prominence in the 17th century when Dutch traders imported a large amount of Chinese porcelain. The style blended Dutch imagery with Asian artistic influence. We visited the…

In Delft the Oude Kerk (old church) is known for its tower that leans towards the left. The Gothic church was built in 1246.  The tower is about 2 meters off vertical due to the unstable ground near the canal. Inside are a number of gravestones laid flat as part of the floor. Burial inside the…

Simon Schama is a British historian known for his high brow television commentary in the tradition of Kenneth Clark. (His passionate appreciation for Bernini’s sculpture is practically operatic.) He has curated an exhibit in den Haag at the Mauritshuis called BIRDS that explores how humans have always had an emotionally conflicted relationship with birds. We…

Yesterday, after our Vermeer sampler, it was time to go to grab a bite at my favorite broodje stand in the whole world that Hendrik introduced me to years ago.  The secret to a broodje is fresh herring. And a sign of fresh herring are the seagulls that want to steal your snack. Once the…

You’d think that to get a good view of Delft all I’d have to do is walk out the door of where we’re staying in Delft and take a look around. But no, not for the art snob. I have to take a train to den Haag and drag Ella to the Maritshuis to see…