English Translation Below
"We want to bring people into contact with art in an accessible way,
So they experience something new." By Jos Van De Burg (interview with Eric Van Straaten)
“...just to go to the travel agency, says Van Straaten by telephone, then we'll talk there". ...Travel agency?
Van Straaten is a photographer and not a travel agent? In the art world somethings are never what they seem to be. Van Straaten is a temporary employee from travel agency ‘Mareado’. The name is taken from a motorboat in the Vlaardingen harbour, but in Spanish
means 'motion sickness'. A tasty promotional name for a travel agency! So the Mareado travel agency is no ordinary art project. If you stop now reading now, you obviously belong to the group of Vlaardingers, who buried their desires and dreams. People who have their imagination locked it away and threw away the key. Maybe you don't want to hear that but you read on. Van Straaten will stimulate your fantasies. That's how it should be, because artists are there to give us a different look at reality. They put question marks - sometimes with humor, sometimes with seriousness - in everyday life. The result is a journey through our inner self, in which things are shaken up nicely.
To travel? Art? Last year four board members of ‘arts foundation Mareado’ had a brainwave. The idea: travel and art are similar, because both get us out of the daily routine. With this insight into what you can do with as an artist, Mareado put eleven artists to work with the assignment on the Vlaardingen’s land and water to create a work of art about travel. Subsequently, the foundation opened the travel agency on the West harbor in town. For two weeks You can do a 'trip' - on foot, by boat or by van - booking with a destination of the artworks.
Cuban Revolution
If you are reading this now, ‘travel agency Mareado’ has already disappeared, but during the conversation with Van Straaten it’s in full swing. Van Straaten shows me the travel brochure that looks like an average travel guide. There are special offers in and statements of departure and arrival times. Who didn't know better, would think he is in an ordinary travel agent. Satire on the world of travel? Van Straaten prefers to call it 'a light-hearted game', where an easy way to get in touch with people who are introduced to art. The eleven artists are selected from fourteen submissions: six were accepted by the elected Commission for Visual Arts, the other five by the Mareado foundation. It was a shame to reject artists and leave them walking around unhappy, says Van Straaten, but that's sadly all in the game. "One time you there, the next time you're out of luck." The artists have been busy making a very diverse selection of work. Logical, because when asked to create a work of art about travel like "A journey or travel destination" you can do all sides. Some have taken travelling literally. Like Moritz Ebinger, who was inspired by the Cuban revolution. His artwork consists of a boat trip to an unknown little South Holland island, where the revolution will be proclaimed. Whether it comes to revolution is incidentally, the question, because Van Straaten says that the revolutionary visitors to the island will have 'a nice Cuban meal and special rum imported from Cuba while they wait. Artist Adriaan Nette is looking for it closer to home: under the motto 'walking is seeing while moving, but also moving whilst being seen' he walks with travelers through Vlaardingen.
Oil and roses
You can talk about art for a long time, but experiencing it yourself is best, I step into Van Straaten old Citroen van. We drive to the oil wholesaler E.O.S., where Tanja Boxman is in a glass control building with bottles of oil with 666 red roses in them.
Roses? A nice contrast to the industrial port building that adds a bit of romance to life. Boxman says in the travel guide that she has let herself be inspired by tearjerkers like: "There are never any roses on a sailor's grave.” Then we drive to the recycling center shop Het Goed, where the Englishman Chris Dobrowolski with old stuff like record players and beat-up vacuum cleaners evokes nostalgic longing for the pre-war period.
Desire for the time when travel was still an adventure can be found in Van Straaten's favorite artwork by Dobrowolski: an old record player on which pre-war English music is played, while at the same time a miniature airplane in front of the airflow of a vacuum cleaner takes off. When you close your eyes, you can time travel to the past. Remember the name Dobrowolski.
A little later we are at the ‘Queen Wilhelminahaven’ the metal recycling company ‘Zethameta’ which as a source of inspiration served for Dike Hof. In the company’s harbor a barge full of scrap iron, wrapped in red cloth. The 'jewel box' is an ode to the beauty of scrap metal, which sparkles and shines in the sunlight. Van Straaten points to the beautiful light, with which he betrays that he is a photographer. What kind of photography does he practice? "I love landscape photography. That's sort of photography which you have to go out and keep travelling around. Sometimes you see nothing all day, but sometimes it suddenly hits you. You should catch reality.” A few years ago he traveled all over the Netherlands to commercial and industrial sites. What was he looking for? "Those places are that are the last piece of wilderness in the Netherlands. There special things.”
Floating rowboats
We drive back to the travel agency, where Van Straaten again discusses the purpose of the art project. “We want there to be a low-threshold access to the art- accessible and in touch, so everyone can experience something new. The beautiful thing is that art and reality walk together.” As an example he mentions Zethameta, where the 'jewel box' was. The company was organising it’s own tours. "Isn't that beautiful?"
He has an even better example.
"People came to the travel agency who wanted to book a trip to Majorca. Creating that confusion fits the bill in our plan. You hope people are here by being made to think, so that they realize that you are in for a special experience and they don’t need to go far away to get it. The most beautiful trips you make in your head." That their visit to the travel agency was disappointing, is what Van Straaten calls regrettably unavoidable.
"Because it's a beautiful project, you’re hoping for hordes of people, but that is not realistic. You are always inclined to judge yourself by the numbers so you forget that many people are different. Most people don't want one adventure, but the same every day. Every day they must be like the last. Unfortunately, that’s how things are. What can you do about it? Moving or as one Don Quixote keep trying. I choose the latter."
About the municipal art establishment he's not complaining either. “As an artist you can easily get in touch with officials.
There are good people like Herman Berkhout, who also helped us with this project fantastic help. Without such people it can't be done."
He also likes the size of Vlaardingen.
"I think Rotterdam is too big and anonymous; Vlaardingen has the ideal size." He looks up at the bobbing rowboats by the water at the travel agency, with which 'travelers' can take to visit the works of art. "Nice boats, huh?" a group of screeching seagulls agree with him.
So they experience something new." By Jos Van De Burg (interview with Eric Van Straaten)
“...just to go to the travel agency, says Van Straaten by telephone, then we'll talk there". ...Travel agency?
Van Straaten is a photographer and not a travel agent? In the art world somethings are never what they seem to be. Van Straaten is a temporary employee from travel agency ‘Mareado’. The name is taken from a motorboat in the Vlaardingen harbour, but in Spanish
means 'motion sickness'. A tasty promotional name for a travel agency! So the Mareado travel agency is no ordinary art project. If you stop now reading now, you obviously belong to the group of Vlaardingers, who buried their desires and dreams. People who have their imagination locked it away and threw away the key. Maybe you don't want to hear that but you read on. Van Straaten will stimulate your fantasies. That's how it should be, because artists are there to give us a different look at reality. They put question marks - sometimes with humor, sometimes with seriousness - in everyday life. The result is a journey through our inner self, in which things are shaken up nicely.
To travel? Art? Last year four board members of ‘arts foundation Mareado’ had a brainwave. The idea: travel and art are similar, because both get us out of the daily routine. With this insight into what you can do with as an artist, Mareado put eleven artists to work with the assignment on the Vlaardingen’s land and water to create a work of art about travel. Subsequently, the foundation opened the travel agency on the West harbor in town. For two weeks You can do a 'trip' - on foot, by boat or by van - booking with a destination of the artworks.
Cuban Revolution
If you are reading this now, ‘travel agency Mareado’ has already disappeared, but during the conversation with Van Straaten it’s in full swing. Van Straaten shows me the travel brochure that looks like an average travel guide. There are special offers in and statements of departure and arrival times. Who didn't know better, would think he is in an ordinary travel agent. Satire on the world of travel? Van Straaten prefers to call it 'a light-hearted game', where an easy way to get in touch with people who are introduced to art. The eleven artists are selected from fourteen submissions: six were accepted by the elected Commission for Visual Arts, the other five by the Mareado foundation. It was a shame to reject artists and leave them walking around unhappy, says Van Straaten, but that's sadly all in the game. "One time you there, the next time you're out of luck." The artists have been busy making a very diverse selection of work. Logical, because when asked to create a work of art about travel like "A journey or travel destination" you can do all sides. Some have taken travelling literally. Like Moritz Ebinger, who was inspired by the Cuban revolution. His artwork consists of a boat trip to an unknown little South Holland island, where the revolution will be proclaimed. Whether it comes to revolution is incidentally, the question, because Van Straaten says that the revolutionary visitors to the island will have 'a nice Cuban meal and special rum imported from Cuba while they wait. Artist Adriaan Nette is looking for it closer to home: under the motto 'walking is seeing while moving, but also moving whilst being seen' he walks with travelers through Vlaardingen.
Oil and roses
You can talk about art for a long time, but experiencing it yourself is best, I step into Van Straaten old Citroen van. We drive to the oil wholesaler E.O.S., where Tanja Boxman is in a glass control building with bottles of oil with 666 red roses in them.
Roses? A nice contrast to the industrial port building that adds a bit of romance to life. Boxman says in the travel guide that she has let herself be inspired by tearjerkers like: "There are never any roses on a sailor's grave.” Then we drive to the recycling center shop Het Goed, where the Englishman Chris Dobrowolski with old stuff like record players and beat-up vacuum cleaners evokes nostalgic longing for the pre-war period.
Desire for the time when travel was still an adventure can be found in Van Straaten's favorite artwork by Dobrowolski: an old record player on which pre-war English music is played, while at the same time a miniature airplane in front of the airflow of a vacuum cleaner takes off. When you close your eyes, you can time travel to the past. Remember the name Dobrowolski.
A little later we are at the ‘Queen Wilhelminahaven’ the metal recycling company ‘Zethameta’ which as a source of inspiration served for Dike Hof. In the company’s harbor a barge full of scrap iron, wrapped in red cloth. The 'jewel box' is an ode to the beauty of scrap metal, which sparkles and shines in the sunlight. Van Straaten points to the beautiful light, with which he betrays that he is a photographer. What kind of photography does he practice? "I love landscape photography. That's sort of photography which you have to go out and keep travelling around. Sometimes you see nothing all day, but sometimes it suddenly hits you. You should catch reality.” A few years ago he traveled all over the Netherlands to commercial and industrial sites. What was he looking for? "Those places are that are the last piece of wilderness in the Netherlands. There special things.”
Floating rowboats
We drive back to the travel agency, where Van Straaten again discusses the purpose of the art project. “We want there to be a low-threshold access to the art- accessible and in touch, so everyone can experience something new. The beautiful thing is that art and reality walk together.” As an example he mentions Zethameta, where the 'jewel box' was. The company was organising it’s own tours. "Isn't that beautiful?"
He has an even better example.
"People came to the travel agency who wanted to book a trip to Majorca. Creating that confusion fits the bill in our plan. You hope people are here by being made to think, so that they realize that you are in for a special experience and they don’t need to go far away to get it. The most beautiful trips you make in your head." That their visit to the travel agency was disappointing, is what Van Straaten calls regrettably unavoidable.
"Because it's a beautiful project, you’re hoping for hordes of people, but that is not realistic. You are always inclined to judge yourself by the numbers so you forget that many people are different. Most people don't want one adventure, but the same every day. Every day they must be like the last. Unfortunately, that’s how things are. What can you do about it? Moving or as one Don Quixote keep trying. I choose the latter."
About the municipal art establishment he's not complaining either. “As an artist you can easily get in touch with officials.
There are good people like Herman Berkhout, who also helped us with this project fantastic help. Without such people it can't be done."
He also likes the size of Vlaardingen.
"I think Rotterdam is too big and anonymous; Vlaardingen has the ideal size." He looks up at the bobbing rowboats by the water at the travel agency, with which 'travelers' can take to visit the works of art. "Nice boats, huh?" a group of screeching seagulls agree with him.