The Dutch have been irreverent for years, but now the world is catching on to their specific kind of creative daring -- Rem Koolhaas has a stranglehold on architecture, Droog design leads in product design and nothing could be cooler than Victor and Rolf in fashion or the man who nurtured the scene, Alexander van Slobbe.
KesselsKrammer, the Dutch advertising agency based in an old church renovated into a boy's dream adventure (no girls, a wooden fort, gold beach towers, park benches and footballs) is at the cutting edge of advertising. Their ads for the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel included a campaign where posters were stuck in random dog poop littering the city, while in another campaign for a national newspaper they turned everyday people into queens and minor television celebs for a week.
Art is lagging behind the more commercial ventures, though, as was obvious at a recent exhibition of Dutch art at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery in Shinjuku, where the trampoline was the most exciting item, i.e. not exciting at all.