Marga van Mechelen

In De Groene Amsterdammer of early July, music critic Bas van Putten looks back on the Holland Festival by asking: Did this edition of the Holland Festival once again succeed in staying ahead of its time? The question implies that a festival with one of the Netherlands’ most illustrious histories has a mission—one in which…… Read more

Once every few years, a new art museum is conceived in the Netherlands. Not every conception, however, leads to birth. More often than not, they revolve around the collections of private collectors, deemed museum-worthy—at least by their owners. One notable failure was the museum intended to house the Scheringa Collection. The 10,000-square-metre building, designed by…… Read more

With the word nostalgia, you can go in almost any direction —except the right one. That familiar Dutch saying was my immediate reaction after reading the editorials in the special Nostalgia issue of the art magazine Metropolis M. This despite the editor-in-chief’s attempt to pre-empt criticism by arguing that our present moment calls for a…… Read more