Happening at the IISH

On Thursday 19 April 2007, the Floating Gardens, made by the former 'provo' and 'anti-smoke-magician' Robert Jasper Grootveld, which have been drifting in Amsterdam's Eastern Docks since 2000, were moored at the Entrepothaven behind the building of the International Institute of Social History (IISH).

It was an excellent occasion to organize an event in Grootveld's tradition. The organizing committee, consisting of Claudia Trapman, Ton Heijdra, Arno Baan, Ellen Wierda, Alice Roegholt and Hedy d' Ancona, invited Grootveld's in-crowd and old mates, and the press.
His personal biographer, Eric Duivenvoorden, sketched Grootveld's turbulent life and two short films, dating back from 1955 and 1962, entitled respectively Jasper en het vlotje [Jasper and the raft] and Jasper en het rokertje [Jasper and the smoker], were featured. One of Grootveld's masterworks, the triptych entitled Het appeltje [The apple with the spot] symbolizing Amsterdam as a paradise, was unveiled.

IISH's deputy, Titia van der Werf, thanked Robert Jasper Grootveld for entrusting his personal archive to the institute, thereby adding an important representative to the already substantial archives of the Dutch Provo-movement.

View Jasper en het vlotje [Jasper and the raft] (1955) - 1:27 min., wmv-file