'When I have an idea for a next drawing, I only draw for that drawing. But never in the weekend do I think, “I’m bored, let’s draw.” I never do that. And the reason why, I found out, is that drawing is also consuming of all my concentration. It’s real work. Every little detail has to be on it. I love that, because without the details, my drawings could be somewhere else. But they’re not somewhere else; they’re of Amsterdam.' —Elles Middeljans For the 24th episode of Dutch Art & Design Today,...
May 31, 2026•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 24
‘I like these kind of large topics that tell us a lot about the history of our discipline; about the history of taste; about the history of art history, basically. Part of what I want to highlight with my research, is that we have a certain perception of how a pictorial tradition—as Titian, Tintoretto, Rubens—ended up disfavored at a certain point in history, or apparently fell out of favor... Frans Hals never fell out of favor. ' —Oana Stan For this episode of Dutch Art & Design Today, I sa...
Apr 30, 2026•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 23
'I got tired of the relentless four corners of everyone's social media posts—and so the way to formally get around that, if you can't eliminate them, is to, you know; add about 10,000 corners to a work. Which seemed like a great approach, which I've stayed with, because what it allows me to do is activate the negative space. And the fact that the positive space is animated means that the objects—the pictorials that are animating on the foreground—are still defining and working to create a differ...
Oct 31, 2025•2 hr 6 min•Ep. 22
'Oftentimes when you see digital art, it feels unrooted. It feels like it’s hard to place, especially if you’re coming out of the tradition. And what I always say is—if you want to be a part of the tradition, you have to have a conversation with the tradition. And the most simplest way of having a conversation with the tradition is actually bringing up some of those works.' —Adrian Pocobelli For the 21st episode of Dutch Art & Design Today , I spoke with Adrian Pocobelli, a Berlin-based arti...
Sep 01, 2025•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 21
‘I think it’s our duty as a museum to address social issues, whether they’re in the past, or whether they’re happening now, because we have a societal role. We’re here for society… Art is about people. It’s about working together. It’s about how we look at each other, how we understand the world, and how we open our minds to what is unfamiliar. That’s what a museum should do.’ —Lidewij de Koekkoek For the twentieth episode of Dutch Art & Design Today, I sat down with Lidewij de Koekkoek, who...
Jul 31, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 20
'When I think about Rembrandt, I think of Rembrandt as dramatic. There's a drama. An emotional something's going on; the dark colors; a three-dimensional pull into it. And that three-dimensional pull, pulls me as a person into what is going on. And I have an emotional response to being in that scene—whatever it is. So there's something about Rembrandt that is guttural; you know? I don't just look at Rembrandt and say, oh, isn't that interesting. I dive into a Rembrandt.' —Jill Bolte Taylor For t...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 19
'Language is so important, and particularly right now; especially when differentiating the Dutch Republic from the Southern Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Not only in terms of what that meant politically, but also religiously, and how these factors influenced the way the art produced then and there, looks. I've found that when speaking to museum visitors, they would often use the words Dutch and Flemish interchangeably; so I wanted to unpack this code art historians use—when we say Dutc...
Jun 30, 2024•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 18
‘We are a very vibrant country; Curaçao. But we are so much more than these cliches that pervade in mainstream thought about the Caribbean. There’s real struggles here. Real injustice and economic disparity. And it has to do with our past. But a lot of progress has been made… My art seeks to show the average Curaçaoan; the fisherman at Playa Piskadó; Carnival; Tumba performers, who have their roots in African dance. The colonial past really does still impact us, daily. And so my work in AI tries...
Mar 31, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 17
'Spinoza is a great portal to the Dutch Republic; because with Spinoza you have to look at Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. And if you start looking at Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, you’re drawn to the art. If you’re drawn to the art you become aware of the social and economic context. It’s really like looking through the looking glass. Once you’re in, you’re in.’ —Steven Nadler For the sixteenth episode of Dutch Art & Design Today, I sat down with Steven Nadler, who is a...
Sep 30, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 16
'Back in 2006, or 2007, I painted a kind of a landscape, in a very liquid way; sometimes abstract and sometimes realistic. But I would always add details, like a cow in the foreground watching its shed or hut, standing in a puddle of water. And the cow, in that work, is standing on the hill. But can't go back to the hut... And what I like about that painting, is that there are different levels to it. A daily life scene; a cow watching the effects of global warming. But on another level, maybe I'...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 15
'Habsburgs loved their animals. As we do today. They're no different than us. They went to great lengths, to get their horses, dogs, cheetahs, their elephants... and that's always fun. I want to make history fun, inspiring, and alive. It doesn't have to just be wars and politics. These people had lives. They had their loves; and their children. So how can we make that, and their documents, interesting? We need history; as much as we want to be always grounded in the future, flying off into space...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 14
'What's left to do? To keep people interested in old art. To make that art interesting and relevant. Perhaps relevant isn’t the right word… But if you look at the art market; the biggest money, right now, is in modern and contemporary art. You see it in auction houses, too. The content of the sales is different than it was 20 years ago. Old Masters remain a challenge. But then, you'll get a Vermeer exhibition, like at the Rijksmuseum—where the tickets sell out on the second day. And so I’m optim...
Jun 30, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 13
'I understand the anger from a lot of people around AI. I had the same. The first time I saw AI, it made me very angry—at the whole development. I thought: what is this ? But I also thought: how can I have such a strong opinion about AI, if I don't know what it , is? So I decided to dig into it and explore it. That's the only way to know what you're talking about... Before my work in AI, I was always making my own photos of models and I always stuck very close to the reference. I can explore mor...
May 31, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 12
'In digital fashion, craftsmanship has moved from knowing how to work with leather, or how to embroider physically. But I think the craftsmanship that’s done in digital fashion is the same if not more than the time spent crafting physical fashion. So, the craftsmanship of the traditional fashion industry is still present in the digital fashion industry; it’s just that digital fashion designers are using different tools, in their work. And it’s funny how in the real world we try to delete imperfe...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 11
'What I'm predominately interested in, is telling stories of people that might have been overlooked. But you have to be very careful. Because not everyone has the same starting point or opinion on topics that you might want to discuss—for example, if it's about gender, a queer perspective, or a decolonial perspective. I want to present a story that feels respectful to everyone who visits a museum, but that still can be challenging for people with different views. But without scaring them away co...
Apr 14, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 10
'In the early-seventeenth century, group portraiture was about social relationships that were the topic of such paintings. And in the late-nineteenth century, visual language in painting was a little more open; a little more abstract. So for me, the canvas is like a stage of happenings that play out on a global level. And that's the reason that my large-scale canvases tend to look like theatrical compositions. They are, basically, meant to portray different digital spaces. I want to paint the me...
Mar 31, 2023•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 9
'I'm really interested in contemporary art because it can be anything. And I know that that's very off-putting for some people. When it comes to artistic movements; you have a lot of different styles that are very particular and very stylized and very identifiable. When it comes to contemporary art, you don't really have that as much, because the whole basis of contemporary art is that it's what's happening now. It's living artists in essence; that's what the word contemporary truly means...' —S...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 8
‘For the nineteenth century, Dutch artists had to try to emulate artists from the seventeenth century. It was the standard that they had to try and find. And if they exhibited in Paris, that’s also what the critic said: "this is like a Ruisdael; that’s like a Rembrandt; he’s doing a very good imitation of that artist." And that’s something they had to fight against, or overcome. And that only happened, with the advent of The Hague school, and its artists. There's also a French-Dutch part of the ...
Jan 31, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 6
'...I was always more drawn to modern art. But I love all art. I'll go to any museum; whether they show ancient or modern art. But I specialized in modern art, because it's always excited me; like its new ways of making, new ways of viewing things. That's always fascinated me. And I was always, during my studies, always writing about new art and avant-garde art. Surrealism was a huge interest of mine. Futurism; Dadaism; all these 'isms' from the 20s. And then, of course, conceptual art from the ...
Jan 14, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 6
‘…And this gave me; I think it gave me; not just the knowledge of that medium and the specific period of time. But also the conviction, that if you put your mind to it, and take a little time—that in a year or two you’ll be a specialist too. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you cannot be a specialist; even if you haven’t studied something in previous years. You can always be a specialist.’ —Christi Klinkert For the fifth episode of ‘Dutch Art & Design Today’, I sat down with Christi Klinkert, ...
Dec 31, 2022•1 hr 53 min•Ep. 5
'The Teylers is a natural history museum, and up until the nineteenth century collected all kinds of beautiful books on birds. And one of those books is about doves—and Pauline de Courcelles made the illustrations for that book, and became very famous for it. We didn't have any drawings by her in the collection... She specialized in bird drawings. And there are not so many drawings by her on the market, so we were pretty lucky to find one. It's a large drawing on vellum and the colors are super ...
Dec 14, 2022•47 min•Ep. 4
'Lots of artists from the Southern Netherlands migrated to Haarlem, and Haarlem really became a breeding ground for new artistic genres. So I would describe the Haarlem school as being very innovative in a way. And that happened early on; even earlier than the early sixteenth century... There was something in the Haarlem climate that made artists come here... there are beautiful surroundings of course, with the dunes. And there was also a very stimulating city council, which is why a lot of arti...
Nov 30, 2022•46 min•Ep. 3
'In the case of, like, you know, the Rembrandts or a Clara Peeters—where these figures or still lifes are just emerging from darkness. And, really bold color uses on top of... you know, very dark... deep. There's a lot of depth. Basically, it's like, the browner and darker it is with hints of gold and pop—up front—that seem to disappear into the background. That might be, a Dutch Golden Age painting!' —Scott Baker For the second episode of 'Dutch Art & Design Today', I sat down with Scott Ba...
Oct 31, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 2
'Vogue has become a really strong brand because of its consistency. Because of its consistency... editorially, but also in regards to its graphics. Frame is a much smaller publication—but it has become a strong brand because of its inconsistency; because of its... always trying to be different; always trying to find new ways to express thoughts. You can go many ways when you make a magazine, and this happens to be the way we have chosen.' —Robert Thiemann For the first episode of 'Dutch Art &...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 1
Art and design, from the Netherlands. 'Dutch Art & Design Today' is a new show hosted by John Bezold, which explores these two worlds and those working within them. From publishers and artists, to designers and curators, painters and podcasters; this podcast takes listeners behind the scenes of their work, to find out why Dutch art and design is so highly regarded across cultures, and time. Cover Art: Mainstudio, Amsterdam. Instrumental Music: Andrey, Ukraine. You can find John on X @johnbez...
Apr 14, 2022•53 sec
