One more day and a new year began. Max Lingner with his work: Woman in Love, 1947. Love never looked so desperate. This one is from the exhibition: Divided heaven 1945-1968. In the first room you can see works of west and east German artists after the 2ndWW. They are so different from the art works you find in the next rooms: art works from the same period, created in other European countries and in the USA.

A solo exhibition of artist Marian Vassileva. Shedipped the hanging fruit in black tar paint. This almost puts off the instinct - to pick the fruit from the tree and bite it. It reminds me of the fruit dipped in poison; the one that was offered by the witch to Sleeping Beauty. The fruit  that flings her into a long hibernation. I haven’t tried. I didn’t even see a prince around.
 

From the known phrase: “Bread and circusesfor the masses” this one is the circuses (or the games). Tomás Saraceno's installations attract many people, especially with children. From the text you can learn about the content. But somehow in the space it feels like the artist wanted so much to amuse the masses that he stopped his research and artistic creation for that.

 A show: “As I Left My Father’s House. Three men: a Christian a Muslim and a Jew, telling stories about war in different lands. Telling how they found themselves victims in their homelands and had to leave their houses. All stories are very sad. For me those people who survived it are heroes. To say that they are victims make them helpless and weak.

A group of small exhibitions, each one is a one artist's show. Precise execution and quality characterizes almost everyone. I noticed that in most of the works the artists turn to look outward: to the streets, to the city and to the forests.
A look that turns its back to the personal and at the same time, tries to get far away towards the abstract. I loved the most abstract\conceptual works, they were almost spiritual.

On that weekend I saw the “mother” of the Marias. The Pieta of Caspar Berger was in a bit dark niche, on the way out from the museum. Only some soft light reaches the sculpture. What strikes me most: this Maria has no face. Does it create in such a way a place for the next crying mother?

Thursday late morning, almost all of them were  there: the white winged Pegasus, the thin horse of Don Quixote, white porcelain shining horse from the living room vitrine, a small wooden cockhorse, even the white horse without the prince, all standing in order. The artist Noa Giniger shows them on case as a collection. Each white horse contains promises and dreams. I had the feeling that the donkey of the Messiah was there too.

At the entrance of the gallery welcomes you this red machine, the one that you can pick up your number to take a place in the line. Like you can find in many shops. But instead of number on paper you get a tongue that sticks out. Mocking you. With humor say the artists, Chaja Hertog and Nir Nadler: No number no order, now you are lost haa?

open ateliers in the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam. In the video work of Roderick Hietbrink we see someone (the father of the artist?) locating a stuffed skin of bird on a tree in the forest. He tries to stable the beautiful dead bird that it will look natural. Is it possible to bring this bird back to the nature? Did the bird tell him how she wants to died, like the ones that told to the animals lovers how they want to be slaughter?

To criticize reality you have to suggest a different reality. Someone said that before. In the case of Paulina Olowska she definitely creates a new reality with her drawings. She refers to commercial advertisementfrom old magazines. It is not only the clothes and the colors, it is also the pose and the atmosphere of the ’70. Looking at the ideology of those years and how it was expressed, her works resemble to the past without nostalgia.

Next Carlo Ferraris in different room is the video art works of Gabriele Stellbaum moving in a different landscape. She moves in places, outdoor and indoor, her voice is company us .We are on the same time part of her memories, her dreams or even her wishes. I thought maybe it all comes from her subconscious. Very precise work, almost scientific.

Carlo Ferraris shows a group of photographs.  It doesn’t works as a series. Seems that he uses his skills as sculptor to create scenes, sometimes it works, like this one: tension was created, not only by the way that the body is situated on the ground also by the way he has cut the perspective in the work.

Ina Van Zyl is an experienced artist. Not only by drawings also by presentation. She talked about her work and chooses to point out the shame in her art: her own shame and the shame that forced us to lower our eyes down.

Rietveld Uncut; A party in a playground: swings next to Lego cubes piles, background music and alcohol. Many young people around, they are the guests and the hosts in this party.  Art students offer their wares, trying to seduce you to participate, to recycle or at least to be photographed.
Among them, a sisyphusperformance: a table carried on someone’s back, bumping into the crowd. It is a rectangle table covered with white tablecloth; on it six folded napkins, two bottles of wine, two loafs of bread, a couple of candles and a fish in a bowl in the center. Eva Mooiman caries the table on her back. A performance that moves between an ”Atlas” image and Jesus carrying the cross. No one is invited to taste the wine or the bread. It is a personal journey and a personal load of Eva Mooiman.