Greenbox Museum of Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia

11/11/2023

FOAM photography musem Amsterdam busy installing a loan of works from our colletion for a winter exhibition.

02/10/2023

From a second hand bookshop in Amsterdam this 2013 Venice Biennale .art.biennale catalogue from

01/07/2023

Vacationing in Indonesia we visited today the wonderful Nasional Museum in Jakarta. The elephant was donated by the king of Thailand, the Quran was brought from Iraq to Sulawesi perhaps 400 years ago.

26/02/2023

Amsterdam gisteren.

20/01/2023

Travelling in the same direction.

10/09/2022

Ww have neglected this page, which reaches out far beyond only Europe. But I share here today’s Arab News. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2159621/saudi-arabia

AMSTERDAM: It all started with a yellow cow and a leap of faith. In 2008, Aarnout Helb, a young Dutch lawyer who studied at Leiden University, was reading the Holy Qur’an while trying to piece together a larger global narrative from a legal and artistic perspective. While poring over the various p...

01/11/2020

In these days of COVID the MiSK Art Institute in Riyadh - a slightly conservative exhibition space, but equipped with a nice building and friendly staff - have created a digital exhibition.You can move around the building to see the artworks and enter video booths with art video's. If you are savvy with digital technology, tell us what you think. https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=mmfudDks1mg

Matterport 3D Showcase

16/04/2020

It is open to both professional and amateur artists around the world and naturally also for artists living in Saudi Arabia. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations invites artists to reflect on the state of the world in "the time of coronavirus." The prizes are modest, but a trip to New Delhi is included and that must be fun and interesting. How to participate is explained in the link sent to us by the Gandhi Centre of The Hague: https://iccr4art.com/prizes.php

20/12/2019

Good and surprised to see this picture again hearing about plans for a second museum to collect, research and share what artists in Saudi Arabia make, do, film, express, paint, draw, glue or hammer together. Would love to see Saudi's do it themselves and not procure vendors, consultants and architects from the west and workers from the east. https://www.admiddleeast.com/art-design/art/saudi-arabia-is-set-to-open-a-museum-of-modern-art

The museum project will be designed based on modern creative concepts in the town of Ad Diriyahis

12/03/2019

The Saudi Artists Association in Riyadh starting yesterday an art exhibition for international women’s day with talks and presentations and before that with the National Anthem.

08/03/2019

Artists living in Saudi Arabia may want to check the website of Athr Gallery in Jeddah, which is calling for to applications for well funded residencies in Berlin, Paris, New York, Beirut and Barcelona. Deadline in March 31, 2019. (At some time in the future I hope they will add Dhaka, Surabaya, Karachi and Amsterdam). https://www.athrart.com/news/240

With the support of private patrons, Athr is pleased to offer residencies in New York, Barcelona, Paris, London, Berlin and Beirut to Saudi-based artists.  At a time of renewed openness in Saudi Arabia, Athr would like to offer its creative community, led by artists, the opportunity to eng...

18/02/2019

Hello friends from Pakistan and everywhere. Check out some recent pictures of the Madinah Art Center, while they were building up an exhibition.

11/02/2019

Visiting a contemporary arts festival in Jeddah this week, with this museum’s curator and other international guests, journalist Shahidul Alam from Bangladesh ran into three of his fellow Bangladeshis, who had just finished cleaning the area around Bab Madinah (the gate towards Medina). I made this photo of their meeting and understood the three of them welcomed Mr. Alam with talk of home and many fruits.

09/02/2019

Revist here at the link our first videopost.
https://vimeo.com/279062778

20/12/2018

Is it a good museum? We hope to check it out one day. https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2018/12/20/museum-islam-indonesia-kh-hasyim-asyari-shines-light-on-history-of-islam-in-archipelago.html

A pyramid-shaped building with a monument bearing inscriptions of 99 names of Allah is the face of Museum Islam Indonesia KH Hasyim Asy'ari (MINHA) in Cukir village, Jombang regency, East Java.

30/11/2018

Last time I visited old and new Jeddah I used my iPhone to make some pictures. Here edited and shared on vimeo. https://vimeo.com/279062778

Bits of film made with an iPhone during a visit to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia around the closing of the 21,39 Art Fair in May 2018. Visiting friends, exhibitions and…

29/11/2018

Facebook, please make things less complicated.

23/11/2018

Adding and describing books to our library. Here a catalogue Cities of Conviction which was made for an exhibition of art by Saudi Arabian artists shown in the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City, where Americans of the Mormon religion go for a twice-annual pilgrimage on their Temple square. The idea was art and dialogue between people from Mecca, Medina and Salt Lake City. http://blog.greenboxmuseum.com/2018/11/22/cities-of-conviction-2017-exhibition-catalogue/

22/11/2018

In the museum after having returned home from a visit to the Emirates.

30/10/2018

Please note that the museum closes early at 3 pm on Wednesday October 31, 2018.

26/10/2018

04/10/2018

11/08/2018

Bits of film made with an iPhone during a visit to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia around the closing of the 21,39 Art Fair in May 2018. Visiting friends, exhibitions and…

20/04/2018

While in Saudi Arabia movie theaters are opening, an avant garde designer in Europe is fighting a culture of images:
https://puckey.studio/projects/anti-selfie-club.

The Black Square vs selfie culture

24/03/2018

Ever more inclusive Saudi Arabia these days.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1271876/saudi-arabia

WASHINGTON: The West — and the Western media especially — has tended to see Saudi Arabian women mostly as victims, passive players in a deeply patriarchal culture. That view has been slowly changing. As the driving ban lifts this June, Saudi women are being perceived not as victims but as standi...

21/03/2018

Lovely work by Maha Malluh from Riyadh storing away privately produced tapes of the 1980’s with intolerant preaching aimed at shaping the world. Being admired by visitors at Art Dubai today.

19/03/2018

An excellent website - in Dutch - which recommends travel and culture things-to-do in the Netherlands. In January they visited us Amsterdam and wrote an article with some pictures which they made themselves. Saudi Arabian art then features for North-Holland. For South-Holland Davides recommendeds the original Royal cabinet of paintings at the prince William V gallery in The Hague. Such galleries were the beginnings of most museums. https://www.davides.nl/greenbox-museum-hedendaagse-kunst-uit-saoedi-arabie/

Een statement is het. Dat de wanden groen zijn van het kleine privémuseum dat toepasselijk Greenbox Museum heet. Een statement tegenover galerie White Cube en alle andere musea en galeries in de westerse wereld met hun overwegend witte wanden. En daarmee ook een statement tegenover dat wat hip and ...

19/03/2018

The museum is closed because of Art Dubai. And opens again on March 28, 2018

23/01/2018

The museum closes on Wednesday 24 and Thursday 25 January 2018 to allow staff to attend an event elsewhere. Apologies for the inconvenience.

19/10/2017

Old book new in the library.
http://greenboxmuseum.com/library/newbooks/library-heritage-twitchell-saudiarabia.html

A book by mining engineer Karl Saben Twitchell, who did the exploration work in the 1930s that opened the way for Saudi Arabia's oil business, which now goes by the name Saudi Aramco (1). It crossed our path because it mentions a Dutch convert to Islam, Arthur Neervoort van de Poll or Muhammad Husai...

05/09/2017

Students of religious sciences visiting the museum.
http://greenboxmuseum.com/universities/august2017-arsnotoria.html

A week before professors and staff officially opened the University of Amsterdam for a new year of learning these first year students of religious sciences arrived with their study-and-socialize group Ars Notoria (The Art of Magic). Belief is perhaps not a seasonal thing, having to wait for an offic...

22/08/2017

An interview (we shouldn't think us and them) with the museum curator by NRC Handelsblad journalist Tomas van Huut (in Dutch) and for those who do not read the language some pictures by newspaper photographer Lars van den Brink. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/08/16/we-moeten-niet-denken-in-wijzij-12551935-a1570141

Greenbox Museum: Het liefst zou Aarnout Helb zijn verzameling Saoedi-Arabische kunst in het Stedelijk onderbrengen. Zijn Greenbox Museum heeft nu een miljoen likes op Facebook.

03/08/2017

Yesterday from Qatar, today from Detroit, the day before from Turkey, then from Bangladesh, before six times London and twice Pakistan, once South America. It's fun to see all the world pass by every few days.

27/07/2017

Often up in arms against muslims and their religion, the American Breitbart news site now kindly pays attention when young Saudi Arabians put up a show of their art. Is it public relations or does it reflect Saudi society? I guess a bit of both.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/us-show-of-saudi-art-aims-to-share-ideas-test-perceptions/

US show of Saudi art aims to share ideas, test perceptions

24/07/2017

Some beautiful images made by Medina artist Ameen Qaisaran of a brick made dome in that city at an exhibition at Tasami Gallery in Jeddah earlier this year. Photo by Richard Duebel. Check them out on our website too.
http://greenboxmuseum.com/museumreport/jeddah%202017.html

13/07/2017

Take a look at this combination or harmonica of an old photograph of Mecca by 19th century professor Snouck Hurgronje and a new one with the modern high rise hotels in Mecca. I you walk to the right - in reality - you see only the old image, to the left the new image. Artist and designer Ahmad Angawi responsible for fixing them together is set to give a talk in London at old fashioned design and decoration museum V & A. If you are in London join him perhaps. https://www.vam.ac.uk/event/747m5ake/culture-in-crisis-artists-respond-ahmed-angawi

Art, Architecture, Design and Heritage. Internationally renowned artist, Ahmad Angawi presents on his recent projects and discusses the symbioses between traditional arts and contemporary design in Saudi Arabia. Angawi will discuss how being of Meccan roots and inspired by the rich diversity of the…

03/07/2017

In these strange times we side a moment with those, who bring New York an artist from Saudi Arabia and report to the world about it, but also wonder why KSA leaves open such a wide gap of softer and more fluid power for other smaller countries to present themselves as leading such uneasy concepts as the 'Arab or Islamic' world. http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/06/york-arab-islamic-art-museum-aims-challenge-stereotypes-170627151615291.html

Qatari art lover, who founded the art institute, says he wants to help change Western stereotype of Muslims and Arabs.