Saskia Meulendijks

Thursday last I went to Leeuwarden – the Fries Museum – to see an exhibition about knitting. Breien was designed by studio La Meul – where I did an internship years ago – and I was quite curious to see what Saskia had made of it. She is the smartest shopper I have ever met, and can make an euro go a loooooong way. Also she has a spare and sprucy style that is quite distinctive. And La Meul has done it again! Well designed and well fitted to that difficult building – the new building that the Fries Museum shares with a few other organisations has a very low wow factor.

It was fun to see a knitted history of knitting. I also liked the knitwork-in-extremis: knitwork that looks like lace and knitwork that is a huge landscape of tented forms. No inspiration to be had in the art department,  that is: no work that measures up to my personal top-10.

MLB Gallery

On my way home I detoured via Amsterdam for a lecture about ‘art and destruction’ at MLB galerie, a small art gallery in de Baarsjes, an up-and-coming Amsterdam neighbourhood close to the city centre. It’s been a while since the last time I was in a group talking about an arty subject, and I enjoyed it. The artist that delivered the talk is into collage – which is definitely a way to use the end producdts of destruction – but also begs the question of relevance:  why pick up the pieces?