Archives: Activiteiten

18-22 July 2022 – 10.00-17.00 hours
Price: € 275 per person (including materials, coffee/tea and entrance to the museum; excluding sketchbook and stationery)
TICKETS  – please note: instructions for ticket sales can be found at the bottom of this page.
Limited number of tickets available.
This event is in Dutch and English.

Participants will receive the schedule and practical information one week before the event.

Sixth edition of Jonas Ohlsson’s Summerschool @ Cobra Museum

Special guest lecturer: Wafae Ahalouch

Four and a half days of drawing and party presentation with DJ Ike

Take a journey through your own creativity together with artist Jonas Ohlsson! Discover the intuitive power of the image and go in search of their own creative instinct. This edition focuses on the role of logic: good art needs logic as well as intuition, how do they go together? Guest lecturer and artist Wafae Ahalouch will give an introduction to her work Soul Solitude that she made especially for the exhibition The other story. Modern Maro Wafae Ahalouch will give an insight into her own way of working: how do you tell a story in a visual work and bring inspiration, thinking and doing together in a collage?

Soft Spirituality

‘Following my work Soul Solitude featured in the exhibition The Other Story, I want to give participants an insight into my way of working. How can you tell a story in a visual work by letting your inspiration, thinking and doing come together in a collage. Playing with shapes, colors and narratives and putting them together is a way to engage in a creative process.

I want to see if we can make abstraction and figuration, symbolism and spirituality connect. By choosing an extra dimension from a composition of basic geometric shapes, elements of earlier drawings get another layer of meaning. Abstracting by possibly enlarging visual elements from the drawings made can lead to surprising new narratives.’

Free Admission to the exhibition Humanity’s End as a New Beginning

Sunday 19 June – 10.00-17.00
Admission free (museum admission not included)

Atelier Cobra

Sunday 19 June – 11.00-14.00 hrs.
Admission free (museum admission not included)

On Sunday 19 June, the Japan Festival with the theme ‘Reconnect for Tomorrow’ will be held in the Amstelveen city centre. As part of this event, the Cobra Museum will also be in a Japanese mood that day with free activities. For example, on the last day of the exhibition ‘Humanity’s End as a New Beginning‘, the works of Japanese-American visual artist Yuriko Yamaguchi can be viewed entirely free of charge while enjoying Japanese snacks. Visitors can also participate free of charge in a walk-in workshop, where there is plenty of opportunity to make their own Japanese art.

In the Voordrachtszaal of the Cobra Museum, thirty watercolours by Japanese-American artist Yuriko Fujita Yamaguchi will be on display, painted in response to a special collection of myths from all over the world. These old stories, brought together by the Amstelveen Emeritus Professor Mineke Schipper, each give their vision of what the end of the world could look like, but also of how it could lead to a new beginning. On 19 June, the last day of the exhibition, Yamaguchi’s remarkable works are freely accessible.

The exhibition ‘Humanity’s End as a New Beginning‘ is free to visit on 19 June. The other exhibitions in the Cobra Museum can also be visited on this day, but the museum’s regular entrance fee has to be paid.

The studio in the Cobra Museum is, as always, freely accessible on Sundays from 11.00 to 14.00. This time, however, the artistic assignment has a Japanese flavour: participants are invited to use Japanese brushes and ecoline to depict their own view of the end of the world as a new beginning. First, take a tour of Yamaguchi’s inspiring works of art and then get to work yourself under the guidance of the museum’s creative staff.

Host: Abdelkader Benali

Sunday May 15, 11.00-11.45 hrs – Exhibition space
This lecture will be in English
Free participation (excluding museum entrance fee)
You can book your free ticket HERE. 

As part of The Other Story the Cobra Museum is now showing around 300 urns, alongside other work by André Elbaz. We are very proud to announce that Elbaz will be giving an Artist lecture in which he will speak about his work and the creation of The Urns, followed by an interview between guest curator Abdelkader Benali and Elbaz.

André Elbaz started painting at the age of 21 and became a professor at the School of Fine Arts (École des Beaux-Arts) in Casablanca in the 1960s. In his work he often deals with historical traumas, from the Holocaust to the genocide in Rwanda. Destruction and re-creation go hand in hand in his work, as is shown in The Urns.

At the lecture André Elbaz will be accompanied by his son Elie Elbaz. At the end, the audience will get a chance to ask some questions.

Please note: the language of this workshop day will be Japanese. Open for all Japanese speaking adults and their children from the age of 4.

Location: Cobra Museum, Nemo Sabo and SABK.
Costs: € 5,- excluding entrance fee to the museum and lunch

Do you like painting and would you like to work and meet with the Japanese- American artist Yuriko Yamaguchi? The Cobra Museum, Jacop and SAKB organize a workshop together where you will get the chance to paint with Yuriko Yamaguchi, learn more about her work and show your own painting in a very special exhibition at SABK. The workshop was created especially for the Japanese community of Amstelveen. The spoken language is Japanese and the workshop is open to adults and their children from 4 years onwards.

In the exhibition Humanity’s End as a New Beginning Yuriko Yamaguchi shows thirty of her water colour paintings at the Cobra Museum. Her inspiration for these artworks came from thirty myths that were collected by the Amstelveen-based emeritus professor Mineke Schipper. These old stories tell us about what would happen if our world, and we as humans, would disappear and come to an end. Story tellers and artists have been fascinated with this subject for ages. And what if this end would be the beginning of a whole new world, what would that look like? Yuriko Yamaguchi is concerned about climate change and pollution and the way we handle the earth. Her work is also a call for taking good care of our world.

More information about the exhibition by Yuriko Yamaguchi you can find here.

Yuriko Yamaguchi (Japan, 1948) is a painter and sculptor. Her work is exhibited in various museums and galleries in the US, Japan and Europe. She has also been commissioned to make works for public spaces, for example at Washington Dulles Airport. The special collaboration between Yamaguchi and Schipper already led to an exhibition in Japan in 2018. The work was also shown in the US and in the Dutch city of Leiden.

Schedule workshop, lunch and exhibition

10:00 am – 10:30 am: walk-in
10:30 am – 12:30 pm: workshop at the Cobra Museum. Yuriko Yamaguchi tells the audience more about her work and her paintings. Under her guidance participants will create their own painting.
12:30 pm: we go to Nemo Sabo
1:00 pm – 2:30 pm: lunch at Nemo Sabo with the workshop participants and Yuriko Yamaguchi.
2:30 pm: opening of the exhibition of the works made by the workshop participants at SABK. The opening will be performed by Yuriko Yamaguchi.
2:15 pm – 4:00 pm: option to have a look at all the works of your fellow workshop participants and enjoy a drink.

If you like your painting can remain in the exhibition until the end of the month, so more people will get a chance to see your work.

Costs: € 5,- per participant for the workshop plus a museum ticket (regular prices € 15,- for adults /€ 9,50 for children, see this page for an overview of discount options). Lunch at Nemo Sabo at own costs.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE

Instructions for booking:
1. Choose the date: 25 March
2. Select the time: 10:00 am
3. Select your ticket type(s) for museum entrance
4. Select the workshop time: 10:30 am
5. Follow the further instructions

One more time there is the opportunity to browse through Constant’s household treasures.

Nothing makes you realise that there used to be a time when objects were produced to last a lifetime then when cleaning out the house of someone born in 1920. Most objects found their way to our archive, storage or the auction house but there is a selection of objects that do not fit in either of these categories. In the right home, with the right owner they can flourish once again. From artist materials, crockery to an old record player.

Whether you foster a love for all things previously loved or you are just looking for some quality tools we would like to invite you once more in the weekend of 18-19 December at the Cobra Museum. All proceeds will go to the Constant 101 project.

NB: Normal entrance fee applies and due to current Covid-regulations reserving a timeslot is mandatory! 

Frida Kahlo seems to have lived her entire life in defiance of normalcy. In this lecture, Musoke Nawolga wants to show how the younger generation of Amstelveen, Amsterdam and the The Netherlands at large by their own means is doing the same. Pushing boundaries in terms of what it means to be gendered, what it means to be free and finally, what it means to stand for a cause.  

This year and last year we have seen many protests; in The Netherlands, but also in the rest of the World. Black Life Matters, protests against Corona Measures, solidarity protests for Afghanistan and Palestina. Protests for human rights; for oneself and for ‘the other’. In this lecture, the outside voice of protest will be brought into a museum setting. Musoke Nawalga and Mala Badi will therein try and define the process of identity formation through protest.  

Within the Oedipus epos, the story tells that ‘the son’ – or in a more feminist perspective: he/she/they/them – has to kill their father to self-realize. Out with the old and in with an idealized and new realm of being. This kind of bravado was also a driving force during the Mexican Revolution (1910 –1929). It is also present in the new social left political space that the European Youth seems to occupy. With this lecture, Musoke will use found footage, written and recorded history of the Mexican revolution in relation to Frida Kahlo’s identity. Connections will be drawn between the protests of today and the protest of the Mexico Frida Kahlo lived in. What does it mean to be revolutionary? Is there an end-stage where the ideal self in a perfect society reaches a perfect identity, or do we all fade into oblivion and give up on our revolutionary selves when the world doesn’t move to our rhythm? 

Musoke Nawalga
Musoke Nalwoga (1994) was born and raised in Uganda. She is currently working in the Netherlands as a curator and researcher with a focus on contemporary art. She is currently working within Motormond; a non-profit contemporary art gallery in Amstelveen. 

Mala Badi
Mala is a gender non-conforming performer and conceptual artist, writer, political activist and co-founder SEHAQ ( Queer refugee in NL ). Born in Casablanca Morocco and they live in Amsterdam ,their writing and artwork focus on themes of Trans-liberation, exile and decolonization. They use art to dismantle and disrupt systems of oppression, and to give their point of view about history and social change. 

Language: English
Fee: € 5,00 euro’s.
The museum is fully booked for upcoming Sunday. You can therefore buy your lecture ticket seperately from the museum entrance ticket.

Identity and Activism: feminism, (queer) identities, and gender in contemporary art

Friday 17 September, 1pm – 4pm
Language: Dutch and English.
Tickets: €15, excl. admission. Choose in our ticketshop September 17th, timeslot 1pm and the ticket that applies.

The museum invited contemporary artists, thinkers and activists for a panel discussion about their art and social engagement. The role of women in contemporary art practice will be discussed, as well as the question whether art can still be art or is it only about social engagement? With moderator Cathelijne Blok and panelists Aynouk Tan, Naomie Pieter, AiRich and Frida Kahlo, co-founder of the Guerilla Girls, who will be present online.

Programme:
12.45-13.00: Drop-in
13.00-14.45: Panel discussion, Cathelijne Blok with Aynouk Tan, Naomie Pieter, AiRich and Frida Kahlo of Guerrilla Girls
15.00-16.00: guided tours by Cobra museum teachers
From 16.00: drinks in Cobra Café and terrace (refreshments not included in the ticket)

Benefit for Talleres Creativos Mexico Cuernavaca

Film & workshop
12 noon – 5 pm

Partners: Creatieve Projecten Mexico (Nellie Markus) part of child programme WereldOuders in Hilversum (representative of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Mexico

The afternoon is free of charge.
(You can buy your admission ticket to the museum here.)

Benefit event to raise funds for the Talleres Creativos Mexico Cuernavaca NPH; creative workshops – art, theatre, dance, music – for young people living in the family house of NPH Cuernavaca, Mexico. And also for underprivileged young people in the neighbourhoods around the family house. Nellie wants these projects to be a permanent part of the family house. The children who live there have been through a lot and these creative projects help them to give these experiences a place.

During the benefit afternoon, we will show a film made by the children of the Family House in Cuernavaca and you can participate in a special workshop. Drawings made by the children of the Family House are also exhibited.

Atelier CoBrA
Buy your ticket here. Limited tickets available. (Choose 26 July and Summerschool)

• Fifth edition of Jonas Ohlsson’s Summerschool @ Cobra Museum
• Special guest artists: Sands Murray Wassink & Mami Wata (aka Rachel Tokromo)
• Four and a half days of drawing with a festive opening with DJ Ike (Bijlmers own James Dean) on the fifth day

For information about the programme of this year, please download HERE Jonas Ohlsson’s letter to all participants.

Practical information

Class of twentytwentyone starts on Monday July 26 at 10am. The program lasts 5 days, everyday from 10am till 5pm (the festive opening on Friday will start at 4pm till 6.30pm. The workshop is in English and Dutch.

Total participation costs are €275 (included are some materials, coffee/tea, entrance to the museum).
You bring your own sketchbook and pencils to the class.

Everyone older than 18 years may join our Class of twentytwentyone, there is no special knowledge required. Participants will receive a schedule and further clues a week prior to the workshop.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate and mail to activiteiten@cobra-museum.nl stating “Summerschool”.

About the artists

Jonas Ohlsson (1967, Örebro, Sweden) is an artist, and maker of drawings, installations and objects. He is a composer of music, and writes and performs as Blodfet & DJLonely. His art is as versatile as his artistical practice. Next to music, provocation and humor other important themes in his work are seks, drugs, politics and street culture. Ohlsson’s background in electronic music penetrates his artistic process, where a big part is reserved for intuition and free association. Jonas also teaches at the KABK, and Design Academy in Eindhoven. He also thaught and given workshops in Boston, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Los Angeles, Aruba, Xiamen and Geneva.

Mami Wata (aka Rachel Tokromo), who will provide a warm up before we start drawing…
“Free your ass and your mind will follow.”

If drawing is an extension of the hand & the body…
It is also important that you land in your body before
you start drawing…
This work out/warm up/meditation session lands you in your body and sets you up…for GREAT drawings!

MAMI WATA: I AM FEELIN’ MYSELF

For a moment feel the energy as it courses through your body, feel the pulsating strength of it. When you are able to stay in the awareness of this energy, you are basically able to contain it in your being without being dragged around by it. You will notice that this energy has the capacity to provide a sense of power within you, a sense of strength and vitality, a sense of courage, a raw sense of invincibility and “heroism” – no other energy known to humans has the ability to in still such a sense of power…… I am talking about the PUM PUM Power! 🔥Let’s get in touch with our Playful and Fi(e)r(c)e Self through Body Movement! aka Let’s set our PUM PUM on fayah through whining! In this gathering we use Body Movement to have a check-IN with Self and to indulge in I AM FEELIN’ MYSELF energy.

Music on Friday afternoon by DJ Ike (Bijlmer’s own James Dean).

Guest artist and lecturer in 2021

Sands Murray-Wassink (born 1974 Topeka, Kansas, USA; based in Amsterdam since 1994). Favorite quote: “I’m not through gathering courage.” His work is as simple and stripped down as possible. He believes art is about making space for yourself and others in the world.
The work of Murray-Wassink comes directly out of and is in line with feminist art of the last century, especially the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s…When Sands was 19 the artist Carolee Schneemann was his teacher and this crossing of paths changed his life and developed into a 25 year friendship and lesson in courage. His trinity of influences also includes artists Adrian Piper (rigorousness) and Hannah Wilke (spontaneity). The personal and the domestic are foundational and political for him. His main art materials are relationships, behavior, thoughts, feelings and emotions. Everything visible or physical is a trace…

Sands is a painter, body artist (performance, writing) and perfume collector. He calls what he does deconstructed – embodied – philosophical – theory and is with his work in direct dialogue with artists both living and dead. Sexuality / pleasure, intersectional politics, mental health (Sands is manic-depressive and especially depression is a major theme in his work), and “how to be an artist” in relation to the art market are all themes in his work. Despite years of marginality in the institutional art world, Sands is now finishing a 2 year collaboration with the Amsterdam organization www.ificantdance.org and is at this moment one of a pool of advisers to the Mondrian Fund.

Maakplaats on Tour

in Atelier CoBrA
Art & technique workshop
Children aged 10-12 years

Together with the Amstelland Library, the museum is organising a Makey Makey workshop on 14 July: make your own musical instrument. This is an exciting tour and workshop for children aged 10-12 in the Cobra Museum of Modern Art. Inspired by Frida Kahlo’s fruit artwork, you will make a fruit instrument with cardboard and a Makey Makey kit. Purchase your ticket here via the library.

What are we going to do?

The Makey Makey workshop is going on tour to the Cobra Museum of Modern Art. First, participants draw inspiration from Frida Kahlo’s fruit pieces and then make their own music with a Makey Makey.
You can design a fruit instrument using pencil and paper, and then bring it to life by making musical circuits with Makey Makey.

Makey Makey allows you to draw the keys of your instrument on paper. By making circuits you can actually play these keys and surprise your fellow participants with your music. A creative and instructive workshop at the interface between technique and art education.