ANBI
1116
Artwork
Street art piece
Tulips
Author:
Orticanoodles
Artist Bio:
a Milan-based duo who started painting in the early 2000’s, inspired by democratic usage of street art, who worked several times with SAMA in the past. They began experimenting with stickers and hand-cut stencils referencing Andy Warhol’s reproduction methodology, before developing their highly recognisable style that combines elements of photorealism, animation, tessellation, collage and subtle, but abundant, art-historical references. Quickly outgrowing the Milan graffiti scene, Orticanoodles began participating in festivals ranging from the lowbrow, unpaid Paint & Beer happenings by graffiti artists from around Europe, to high-end art events including Paris Tower 13, the Djerbahood Tunisia, Venice Biennale and Banksy’s 2008 Cans Festival. On occasion of the first Amsterdam Street Art Festival in 2010, they had the chance to enter in contact with SAMA. Many discussions took place during that week about a mysterious ‘street art’ movement that researcher Anna Stolyarova was investigating, and whether there was a potential connection between it and the Fluxus happenings of the 1960s and ‘70s. Linked with this research, in 2011, Orticanoodles announced the release of their Multiple Prints series, citing inspiration from Pop Art, through representation of the iconic Andy Warhol.
Place:
Nicolaas Ruychaverstraat
Date:
2016
Technique:
Stencil
Material:
concrete
Acquisition:
Commission
Completed:
2016
Condition:
Good / Legible
Physical Description:
Orticanoodles cut the stencils for this production in Milan, before having physically seen the space they would be painting. In order for them to do this, Stolyarova had to provide 360-degree photography of the space, as well as a DIY blueprint of the passage, because the artwork is painted on two walls that face one another. In classic graffiti manner, they were incredibly economical with their materials, bringing only four one-litre bottles of paint -- one for each colour, which they mixed with paint to cover 80 square-meters of space.
Iconography:
Tulips (2016) was a project celebrating the region’s unique cultural and architectural heritage. Amsterdam Nieuw-West is a product of modernist functional architecture and utopian urban planning by Cornelis Van Eesteren. The black lines running throughout the work symbolise the natural canals -sloten- originating at Sloterplaslake, the sand from which was used in mixing the cement used to construct the buildings in the area. The patches of red, yellow, and purple throughout the mural represent the three demographics initially expected to inhabit the newly constructed region in the 1950’s and ‘60’s -- pensioners and invalids from WW2, young families with children, and migrant workers coming from Morocco, following the 1969 Dutch-Moroccan “Recruitment Treaty.”
Likewise, the tulips represent past and present intercultural connections -- the Ottoman Turks first cultivated tulips under sultan Süleyman the Magnificent in the mid sixteenth century, and often sent them abroad as diplomatic gifts. Reaching the Netherlands and gaining hysterical popularity toward the end of that century, they have since become a national symbol. The tulips in Orticanoodles’ Tulips represent this connection, with the majority population in the building on which they are located being Turkish; in addition the building houses the Stichting Kumbet Turkish social club, which also functions as a mosque.
Gallery
