(Nelly&) Theo van Doesburg Foundation and Sara Janssen, daughter of performance artist Servie Janssen, invited a handful of carefully selected Amsterdam-based opinion makers, property developers, press and other stakeholders of our foundation to a one-day exhibition and salon conversation called News from Nowhere. The activity programme took place during the Open Monuments Days in Amsterdam.

From historic townhouse to construction site, News from Nowhere is a one-day group show in a private home bringing together alumni of Dutch art academies and works of private art collections as it relates to agrarian society, biology, class mobility, liquidity and water management. The series is named after a publication of the arts & crafts movement; news from nowhere (an epoch of rest). This soft science fiction shows how socialism not only leads to the abolition of private property but also take away the divisions between art, life, and work thus making it a conversation piece and reference point for the exhibition series. In the novel, the narrator falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the socialist league and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

The selected works in the exhibition are grouped by topic and materiality, reimagining the interior with duo presentations spread over different rooms creating an utopic household. After a viewing of the art works in the historic Amsterdam townhouse we will sit down for a concentrated group talk on the development of yet to be realized public art works by upcoming artists and the foundation. Participating artists include Negiste Yesside Johnson, Agustina Woodgate, Martin Toloku, Annee Grøtte Viken, Kitty Maria van Eekeren and Elise Ehry. The 2025 edition of News from Nowhere took place at the home of Sara Janssen in Amsterdam East, featuring works from her father the performance artist Servie Janssen and other works from her collection.

News from Nowhere 2025 is the fourth in a series of exhibitions in private spaces curated by Nadine van den Boscha and Jules van den Langenberg. Previous editions included collectors Philippa van Loon, Casper van der Kruk and amongst other artists Josse Pyl, Wouter Paijmans, Carly Rose Bedford, Bin Koh, Maria Roosen, Vanessa Beecroft, Barbara Visser and Job Koelewijn. For the News from Nowhere exhibition a private home sets the stage for pairings of works from the art collectors’ collection and emerging artists. (Nelly&)Theo van Doesburg Foundation looks forward to working with these artists in public spaces.

Photos by Sander van Wettum.

(Nelly&) Theo van Doesburg Foundation and private art collectors Annelies van der Pauw and Martin de Koning invited a handful of carefully selected Amsterdam-based opinion makers, property developers from Sluisbuurt and Zuidas, press and other stakeholders of our foundation to a one-day exhibition and salon conversation called News from Nowhere. The activity programme takes place during the Open Monuments Days in Amsterdam.

From historic townhouse to construction site, News from Nowhere is a one-day group show in a private home bringing together alumni of Dutch art academies and works of private art collections as it relates to agrarian society, biology, class mobility, liquidity and water management. The series is named after a publication of the arts & crafts movement; news from nowhere (an epoch of rest). This soft science fiction shows how socialism not only leads to the abolition of private property but also take away the divisions between art, life, and work thus making it a conversation piece and reference point for the exhibition series. In the novel, the narrator falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the socialist league and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

News from Nowhere 2024 is the third in a series of exhibitions in private spaces curated by Jules van den Langenberg. Previous editions included collectors Philippa van Loon, Casper van der Kruk and amongst other artists Josse Pyl, Wouter Paijmans, Carly Rose Bedford, Bin Koh, Maria Roosen, Vanessa Beecroft, Barbara Visser and Job Koelewijn. For the News from Nowhere exhibition a private home sets the stage for pairings of works from the art collectors’ collection and emerging artists. (Nelly&)Theo van Doesburg Foundation looks forward to working with these artists in public spaces.

The selected works in the exhibition are grouped by topic and materiality, reimagining the interior with duo presentations spread over different rooms creating an utopic household. After a viewing of the art works in the historic Amsterdam townhouse we will sit down for a concentrated group talk on the development of yet to be realized public art works by upcoming artists and the foundation. Participating artists include Annee Grøtte Viken, Kitty Maria van Eekeren and Elise Ehry, Ryo Kinoshita, Maurice van Tellingen, Gijs Frieling, Niek Hendrix, Claudia Martínez Garay. To get an even better idea of what the foundation strive for, have a read in the in the article belof on the 2024 edition of News from Nowhere by writer and curator Laurens Otto:

Gentle Persuasion

Each year the (Nelly&) Theo van Doesburg Foundation organises News from Nowhere, a moment bringing together various stakeholders around plans for artworks to be realized in public space. On Saturday 14 September 2024, during Open Heritage Day, artists Annee Grøtte Viken, Kitty Maria van Eekeren and Elise Ehry presented their ideas to art critics, collectors, other artists, project developers and members of Stadscuratorium Amsterdam. Whereas other projects that the (Nelly&) Theo van Doesburg Foundation takes under its wing are advanced or even already realised, these artists present proposals that have yet to find their form.

The foundation also organises Construction Site Conversations on location in areas still under development, but this afternoon takes place in a stately canal house in the middle of Amsterdam, in the home of two collectors. The setting imbues the discussions with a certain weight, concentration, and goodwill. The conversation is followed by a tour along specific works from the collection, which for the occasion are coupled with interventions by artists with whom the foundation works. What to make of this format? The discussion is slightly staged because the guests are deliberately invited and purposefully allocated across three different sessions. The foundation’s president Jules van den Langenberg animates the discussion and leads the group around the one-day exhibition. This makes it more like a Paris Salon than a classic exhibition setup: as a social moment, there’s an interesting tension inherent in the confusion that within this setting art is both pretext, context, and goal.

In its role as initiator and mediator, the foundation’s mission is to find moral, financial, and organisational support for proposals by alumni of Amsterdam art academies. This is a long process because these proposals are in principle unsolicited: the necessary expertise, partners and financial resources must be secured along the way. The focus lies primarily on neighbourhoods where the most development is taking place, particularly the Zuidas and the Sluisbuurt, where 5,500 homes in mainly high-rise buildings are presently being built. As for all projects in public space, the mix of flexibility and persistence must be just right, but these conditions make diplomacy even more crucial.

Annee Grøtte Viken plans to sow several circles of oil flax in the Sluisbuurt. The annual harvest would provide the linseed to make pigment for in-situ painting. The municipal landscape architect has already inscribed the crop circles into the park planning of the entrance area of the new neighbourhood. What remains to be orchestrated is the necessary labour for seeding, maintaining the fields, making the paint, and finally realising the paintings. Viken, who also has a background as a decorative painter, is particularly interested in creating painting patterns of bird’s-eye maple wood, which is typically used for bourgeois furniture. The amount of paint will vary depending on the season’s harvest.

Kitty Maria van Eekeren and Elise Ehry have now been working together as a duo for ten years in a project that draws from the figure of an (unemployed) flight attendant to question high-performance culture. They propose to provide handmade shovels and a cabin for resident groups to introduce a tradition for a collective non-productive activity: shovelling sand. The main concern that arises is how something can become embedded as a custom or even a tradition. An existing body like an Owners’ Association is a logical entry point, but still, the question remains how to keep this alive – especially when residents will change often. One respondent aptly notes that not only the shovel, but especially the context should be provided. This is a context that everyone knows and instantly associates with non-productivity: the sandbox.

To understand how the world is formatted, you need to listen to the language used. On this afternoon, I hear mostly cinematic words: scenario, script, directing. Traditional terms like sculpture, production and permanence are hardly applicable in a world wedded to flexibility and temporality. Which artworks and thought processes does this new language produce and what negotiations are needed to actualise them?

Given the long haul that these projects require, I look with compassion at the artists involved: not only the leap of faith but also the boundless energy required to realise such projects. Isn’t it asking too much of the artists to be involved in all these formal and informal negotiations? Then I realise that precisely in this force field, where post-Fordist ideas clash with Amsterdam’s hyper-capitalist concrete, it is exactly there that artist and foundation are both learning this game in tandem: the art of persuasion. 

Photos by Sander van Wettum.

the (nelly&) theo van doesburg foundation and private art collector philippa van loon invited a group of property developers, experts, collectors and press to a one day exhibition format titled news from nowhere during the open monuments days in amsterdam on sunday afternoon 10th of september 2023.

news from nowhere is an impromptu group show in a private home bringing together alumni of amsterdam art education and works of a private art collection that relate to ideas about public and private space, agrarian society, biology, class mobility and water management. news from nowhere is the second in a series of exhibitions in private spaces curated by jules van den langenberg and guest curator diego diez.

The ornamented family home sets the stage for pairings of works from the art collectors collection and emerging artists. works are associated by topic and materiality, reimagining the interior with duo presentations inhabiting different rooms. spread over several spaces, a temporary utopic household is accumulated with participating artists s*an d. henry-smith, carly rose bedford, maria nolla mateos, vytautas kumža, timo demollin and works from the contemporary art collection of philippa van loon by vanessa beecroft, maria roosen, barbara visser, irene fortuyn and rineke dijkstra.

(Nelly&) Theo van Doesburg Foundation and private art collector Casper van der Kruk invited a group of property developers, experts, collectors and press to one day exhibition titled News from Nowhere on Saturday afternoon 10th of September 2022.

News from Nowhere is a one day group show in a private home bringing together alumni of Dutch art academies and works of the private art collection of Casper van der Kruk relating to agrarian society, biology, class mobility, liquidity and water management. News from Nowhere is the first in a series of exhibitions in private spaces curated by Jules van den Langenberg.

The series is named after a publication of the arts&crafts publication News from Nowhere (an epoch of rest). This soft science fiction points out how socialism will entail not only the abolition of private property but also of the divisions between art, life, and work. Making it a conversation piece and reference point for the exhibition series. In the novel, the narrator falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the socialist league and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. For the News from Nowhere exhibition a bespoke interior in the Byzantium building, one of Rem Koolhaas’ first realised OMA projects, sets the stage for pairings of works from the art collectors collection and emerging artists. Works are associated by topic and materiality, reimagining the interior with duo presentations inhabiting different rooms. Spread over several spaces, an utopic household is accumulated. 

News from Nowhere’s internal programme aims to network the artists involved and a public programme engages invited guests to tour the exhibition and meet the artists. Amongst others works of Josefina Anjou, Sven Kroner, Machteld Rullens, Erik van Lieshout, Maaike Fransen, Folkert de Jong, Wouter Paijmans, Amie Dicke, Jing He, Job Koelewijn, Bin Koh, Florian & Michael Quistrebert, Antonin Giroud, Maria Roosen, Josse Pyl. 

News from Nowhere takes place on Saturday 10 September during Open Monuments Day in The Netherlands and takes place on the top floor of the Byzantium, a building designed by Rem Koolhaas, Kees Christiaanse and Ron Steiner in the first ten years of OMA’s architectural production. "I want it urban; you want it suburban. I want a round window; you make it square Why the hell did you hire me?” screams a cartoon figure Koolhaas in the publication S, M, L, XL (1995) where Koolhaas’ son illustrates the troublesome process between property developer and architect. The Byzantium is located at a prominent spot in the city center of Amsterdam in between the central park Vondelpark and metropolitan streets, the design tries to do justice to both conditions by using the metropolitan scale to screen the idyll. The building is characterised by a gold coloured element sticking out on the top floor, somewhere in between an airport control tower and castle. For the News from Nowhere exhibition this space is programmed and shows a publication about the building process.

Interested in supporting a group show or public art work in the City of Amsterdam with the (Nelly&)Theo van Doesburg Foundation? Email info@theovandoesburgstichting.nl.