The Polke vs Blaudzun exhibition combines art and music into a new masterpiece at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen, the Netherlands.
Cobra Museum of Modern Art
The Cobra Museum of Modern Art was founded to ensure the legacy of the Cobra, a European avant-garde movement active from 1948 to 1951. The name is taken from the first letters of the members’ home cities Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam. Cobra introduced primitive, mythical, and folkloric elements along with a decorative input from their children into their creative process. The often-heard criticism about art: “My six-year-old nephew can do that too!”, is seen as a compliment by the artists of this movement.
The museum houses a large Cobra collection, both modern and contemporary, which it shows in varying compositions.
Current exhibitions
- Polke vs Blaudzun. Music of an Unknown Source
- Intense Mexico: Politics, Identity, Sex and Death
- New presentation of the Cobra art collection
Polke vs Blaudzun. Music of an Unknown Source
A harmonious marriage of music and art, combining the two into a new masterpiece. The music Blaudzun composed upon the Cobra Museum’s request to accompany Polke’s art does so wonderfully. This raises the question whether the music supplements the artworks or Polke’s art adds something to the music? In my opinion neither: something new is created. Art that is neither music nor artwork, but only exists in the combination of the two: the dialogue between Polke and Blaudzun.
Word art
And what a dialogue it is. To quote Blaudzun: “You never really know what Polke is looking for. Sometimes his work is satirical, sometimes it is poetic. And often it is quite conceptual.” I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. And for a visitor to the exhibition, there is a third layer: what is Blaudzun looking for? We hear the music, see the artwork and read Blaudzun’s often humorous comments.
When you visit this exhibition I recommend going together with someone you can discuss it with.
Blaudzun - Musik ungeklärter Herkunft (From Unknown Source)
In the middle of the exhibition hall, you can sit down in a dark room surrounded by the nine artworks Blaudzun specifically created his soundtracks for. The acoustics in the room are great and when you’re in the middle of it all the experience is many times more intense. The music plays in a loop of 32 minutes. So take your seat and listen to the dialogue between Polke and Blaudzun.
No opportunity to visit the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen? You can also listen to the soundtracks on Youtube or buy the tracks on Amazon.
Final thoughts
The Polke vs Blaudzun exhibition impressed me a lot. It is witty and intense. I liked the music and found many of the artworks intriguing. Blaudzun succeeded in creating his dialogue with Polke. Except now I wish every museum played soundtracks to accompany the art.
You can visit the Polke vs Blaudzun exhibition between 14 December 2019 and 5 April 2020.
Intense Mexico: Politics, Identity, Sex and Death
Intense Mexico is a colorful exhibition featuring 46 works of art from the collection of Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. In exchange, some Cobra works are now exhibited in Mexico.
The artworks in this collection express many important aspects of Mexican history. The works dating from the early 1900s can only be understood if you know they were painted around the time of the Mexican Revolution: a very bloody and impactful armed conflict between the dictator Porfirio Díaz and the ‘ordinary people’. Poverty was widespread and is often depicted in the paintings.
Other rooms express the individual and national identity in a sensual way. This either appeals to you or doesn’t. You can’t help admiring the fact that the artists expressed these feelings at the time the artworks were created.
Outside the rooms you can visit the altar for the Día de Muertos; the Day of the Dead (picture 4 in the Instagram post below). The artworks that are part of the altar fit the Cobra-style of the museum very well.
A special mention for the painting “The revolutions give back culture” by David Alfaro Siqueiros (picture 1 in the Instagram post below). I just can’t stop looking at the picture of this painting because the emotion depicted in it is so raw and intense. A new favorite.
You can visit the Intense Mexico exhibition between 11 October 2019 and 29 March 2020.
New presentation of the Cobra art collection
Next to the Polke vs Blaudzun exhibition, you can see the regular Cobra art collection in a new composition. The exhibition has paintings of Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, Carl-Henning Pedersen, and many others. The paintings are colorful and often display surrealism.
In the background, you can hear Blaudzun’s soundtracks. Yet somehow they don’t fit the Cobra paintings as well as the Polke collection.
How to get to Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen?
Amstelveen is a city close to Amsterdam. You can reach the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in less than twenty minutes by public transport from Amsterdam. There are buses going directly from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and Museumplein / Leidseplein in the city center of Amsterdam.
Opening hours
Every day: 11:00 – 17:00. The museum is closed on New Year’s Day (January 1), King’s Day (April 27) and Christmas (December 25).
Tickets
Tickets are 15 EUR. Access is free with a Museumkaart, Stadspas Amsterdam, Stadspas Amstelveen, Rembrandtpas, Iamsterdam City Card, ICOM, and BGL VIP-kaart.
Location
Address: Sandbergplein 1, 1181 ZX Amstelveen, the Netherlands.
