The name of Catherine the Great has always been surrounded with stories and superlatives, often about her private life and court intrigues. Some of these stories belong to the realm of myth, but others are perfectly true. At the age of fourteen, Catherine the Great (1729-1796) was a German princess married off to the Russian tsar. She later overthrew her husband, Peter III, and claimed the throne for herself. Catherine would become the greatest tsarina of all times. She had ambitious plans to reform the whole empire and acted with great foresight. Although she encountered setbacks, her achievements were astounding. This book gives us a closer look at her life.
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Riksa Afiaty
Power & Other Things
The project takes its name from the demand for the transfer of power and other things to the newly independent Indonesia in 1945. It travels through time, from European colonial occupation through the development of the republican state to the trans-national contemporary cultures of today. It looks at the various international exchanges that happened in the territories of contemporary Indonesia, through the images and ideas of artists. These exchanges were of different kinds: trade, culture, religion, ideology and war. They produced a variety of results: violence, oppression, racism, creativity, spiritual awakening, and other things. The ideologies and challenges of modernity are common ways in which Indonesia has been depicted by others and has defined itself over the period. As this modern period recedes into history, the project will seek ways to remember how it has influenced contemporary understanding and ask the current generation of artists to look back in order to rewrite the past and potentially create the conditions for a different future. The catalogue and the exhibition will follow a broad chronological narrative, allowing readers and visitors to learn more about how this huge archipelago has changed over the past two centuries and to observe how it has responded and adapted to influences originating from both inside and outside the islands. The influence of the imperial Dutch and Japanese occupations naturally form a significant element in the narrative of the exhibition as does the constant struggle for different forms of independence or equal treatment by the Javanese and other Indonesian cultures. The importance of Chinese and Arab influence on Indonesia's cultural history will also feature as the exhibition tries to look for alternative ways, alongside the post-colonial, for understanding the present. The presentations will include work made during the residencies as well as new commissions.kunst

Lucassen
''Lucassen' brings together unknown works of art, never before reproduced. Often fresh off the easel, they had disappeared into private collections or other Dutch museums. It is about time that these works become available to a broader public. Featured here are the early paintings in which Lucassen provocatively brings figuration and abstraction in confrontation with one another. He doesn’t want to reconcile the young tradition of abstract art with art’s age-old mission of depicting reality. Influenced by his interest in “primitive art”, in which objects are ascribed a particular spirit and emotional value, Lucassen goes on to use different signs and symbols to express his thoughts and feelings. They become abstract mood drawings with no direct bearing on reality, devoid of anecdotal content, yet born out of real associations and intuition. – Catalogue Kunstmuseum Den Haag.kunst

Princely Patrons
This art collection became dispersed long ago, but a comprehensive selection of its finest works has been brought together in 'Princely Patrons'. It describes and displays one of the finest and most extensive collections of seventeenth-century art in the Netherlands. Between 1625 and 1637, stadholder and prince of Orange Frederick Henry and his wife Amalia of Solms built up a collection of paintings, figures, and countless other subjects, fashioned from the most precious and exotic of material, such as gold, silver, porcelain, lacquetwork, mother-of-pearl and rock-crystal. Frederick and Amalia were inspired by their love of art, but the royal ambitions which they cherished for the future of the still young House of Orange also played a major role in their efforts. These were expressed most strikingly in the decor that they commissioned for the imposing residences in and around The Hague.kunst
