Under Van Gogh's gaze, Robyn polishes a lady's nails. A long table with enamels and lime under the Dutch master's self-portraits transformed the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam into a beauty salon. The BBC reports it.
Museum director Emilie Gordenker hopes this protest, along with others in the Netherlands, will highlight what she believes is an inconsistency in government policy to counter the pandemic.
Under Dutch anti-covid measures,
museums, theaters, bars and cafes cannot open,
unlike hairdressers, beauty salons and gyms. That is why the beauticians offered manicures with cherry blossoms and starry nights inspired by the Dutch master.
"A visit to the museum is safe and just as important as going to a beauty salon, perhaps more so. We ask the government to just be consistent ... set the rules so that everyone understands them. Right now it's not like that." Mrs Gordenker said.
The Van Gogh Museum is not alone in protesting. The De Balie debate center, also in Amsterdam, has circumvented the rules by opening its doors as a religious institution called the Philosophical Society, the Community of Reason. The Mauritshuis, where Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring is exhibited, has been transformed into a training ground on the doorstep of parliament in The Hague.
The Panorama Mesdag, in The Hague, invited people for an afternoon of "mind-strengthening", while the Limburgs Museum transformed into a gym for the day with a session of Zumba.
There are many sectors of Dutch society that share the view that the government's strategy for containing covid 19 is illogical and contradictory.
“It doesn't work, I can do my job and the people in the museum can't,” said Mischa, a barber, who brought his traditional work chair, mirror and trim to the entrance to the Van Gogh Museum. “Look around. There is so much space and people can be in a supermarket with 300 people, it's crazy. "
