MMP
ANNOUNCEMENTS•
Artist, storyteller and radio producer Willem de Ridder has died at the age of 83. De Ridder passed away peacefully on Thursday after “a short-lived illness,” his said website. “He is/was an inspiration to many and will be missed.”
De Ridder was engaged in all kinds of developments in the field of art and culture. He was also one of the founders of several magazines, such as Hitweek, a youth magazine that he co-created with Peter J. Muller and which was produced by the readers themselves, and the sex magazine Suck.
The artist is also one of the founders of the Amsterdam clubs Paradiso and Melkweg.
The Eye Filmmuseum spoke to De Ridder about the early days of Paradiso:
De Ridder also worked closely with Wim T. Schippers, with whom he founded the Association for Scientific Research in New Methods of Recreation (AFSRINMOR International).
It is one of the more famous art forms of the two to pour of a bottle of Schippers lemonade in the North Sea. Together the two created the so-called “fact art”, or art “stating the facts”.
De Ridder was also an advocate of the philosophy of “mirrorogy”, the idea that everything and everyone in one’s environment is a mirror. Everyone is constantly looking at themselves. This is why no one can see the other, one sees in others only what one recognizes in oneself.
Get nothing
De Ridder had his own show on the Amsterdam radio station Radio 100 for more than twenty years. He also had his own online channel: Radio Knight. Next Monday, between 21:00 and 23:00, it will be covered on that channel.
The Progressive Magazine Devastate De Ridder asked in a 2003 interview what he wants to convey with his work. “I don’t want to get anything for my fellow man, nothing at all. I just want to do what I like.”
