Straat Museum

Today the weather forecast isn’t so great so we thought we would visit a couple of museums. Top of my list was the Straat Museum, which is the Museum for Graffiti and Street Art. The Straat has been awarded Best Museum in the Netherlands at the Tiqets Remarkable Venue Awards, an amazing accomplishment for an establishment that has only been open for 26 weeks. Now that I have been there I can confirm it definitely deserves the recognition. The Straat is one of the best Art Museums I have ever been too.

We caught the tram into Amsterdam Centraal, from here we were told we could catch a free ferry to the museum. We found the area where the ferries departed from and thought we were catching the right one, but unfortunately Dutch communication and directions, particularly on public transport isn’t great. So the ferry we initially caught, took us across the body of water but not to our intended destination. So we caught the ferry back across to where we had started and then after some further investigating and asking some people we found the correct location to catch the ferry. We had a 25 minute journey to Noord 1, which was a little chilly but pleasant enough.

The collection is housed in an old industrial building with 26 metre high ceilings and comprises both well known, established artists and emerging artists. The range of works on display is quite broad and many of the pieces really do cause quite an emotional response.

It is a wonderful space to wander through and return to favourite pieces or see them from another position. You can actually also view the entire space from several viewing platforms. I found that I missed a couple of pieces as I wandered around and returned to some favourites.

There is also some great information on the development of graffiti and street art over the years as well as the ethos of the community. Cornbread did some tagging in the 1960’s along with Cool Earl in Philadelphia that really marks the birth of graffiti movement, followed in 1968 by students protesting from the Sorbonne University in Paris and New York’s Columbia University. They are the first to adopt the visual language of graffiti for their slogans. Then in 1969 an article in Urban Review by Herbert Kohl, titled “Names, Graffiti and Culture” is the first scientific article about the graffiti movement.

During the 1980’s there is the rise of the pixaçāo movement in Sāo Paulo, The Berlin Wall becomes a popular painting spot for both national and international street artists, including Thierry Noir and Keith Haring. Next Blek Le Rat hits the streets of Paris with his stencils and an article appears in the Washington Post by Joyce Wadler titled “Graffiti: learn to appreciate it”.

In the 1990’s KAWS starts subvertising billboards, bus shelters and phone booths. The Israeli West Bank barrier becomes a popular hall of fame for many street artists, among them Banksy. In 2001 Banksy’s first book, Banging your head against a brick wall was published. In 2002 Banksy starts his popular series of stencils titled ‘Girl with Balloon. In 2008 the Tate Modern hosts the exhibition “Street Art”. Street artist BLU erases his own murals in protest of the exhibition and to speak out against gentrification in the district of Berlin-Kreuzburg. In the 2020’s the US Appeal Courts affirms the rights of a group of graffiti artists whose works on the ‘5Points’ building were destroyed in 2013 without warning or consent. The artists receive an overall sum of $6.8 million in damages. And finally the coronavirus pandemic forced the postponement or cancellation of some events, such as tours to mural festivals.Read more