This appendix gives a picture of twelve people who determined the atmosphere of the social environment of IJzerdraat. People from the time when the imagination was in power and Amsterdam manifested itself as a magical center.
Photo by Willem Otten
Kees Hoekert (Nunspeet 1929 – Elburg 2017).
Former French teacher, Provo, co-founder of the Lowlands Weed Company, lateral thinker and owner of houseboat de Witte Raaf (the White Raven). Was the informal mentor of Arthur IJzerdraat for 30 years, who visited him daily to hand over his artistic products and drink a cup of tea. On board the white raven IJzerdraat silently witnessed the lengthy and often hilarious conversations with a large number of creative visitors, a number of which are briefly described below.
Magical ritual for good weather during the Popfestival Zuiderpark in The Hague (1979). Photo by Willem Otten
Robert Jasper Grootveld (Amsterdam 1932-2009).
Performance artist, provo, co-founder of the Lowlands Weed Company, anti-smoking magician and raft builder. Eric Duivenvoorden wrote about this icon of the 1960s the biography ‘Magician of a new era; the life of Robert Jasper Grootveld’ (Arbeiderspers 2009).
Photo by Willem Otten
Willem van den Hout (Den Bosch 1915 – Den Haag 1985).
Advertising writer who was during the German occupation editor-in-chief of the satirical-propaganda magazine De Gil, which was secretly funded by the Nazis After the war he was imprisoned for three years on suspicion of collaboration, but was acquitted. The Press Purification Council denied him the right to journalistic work for 10 years. To earn a living he established himself under various aliases as a penny-a-liner. With the name Willie van der Heide he published the series of adventurous boys’ books Bob Evers, which sold more than 5 million copies.
Photo by Cor Jaring
Bart Huges (Amsterdam 1934-2004)
Nearly graduated medical doctor and propagandist of LSD and trepanation. In 1965 he drilled single handed a hole in his skull, after which he claimed to be permanently 70% ‘high’. He was refused further access to the medical exam. Subsequently worked in an insignificant position in the library of the Koninkijk Instituut van de Tropen in Amsterdam and continued to actively propagate his ideas in his ‘Letters to the superman’.
Cor Jaring (Amsterdam 1936-2013).
Photographer, conceptual artist and teacher at the Enschede art academy. Achieved world fame with his photographs of the Provo movement and of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s week-long Sleep in for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton hotel in 1969. Organized the first national frog expedition in 1979.
Photo by Cor Jaring
Theo Kley (Rotterdam 1936 – Amsterdam 2022).
Visual artist and co-founder of the Deskundologisch Laboratorium and various other playful (study)societies. Deskundologie was described as the science that deals with what you can feel on your wooden shoes and that is over nobody’s cap. Kley took the initiative for a 14-day butterfly count in the Belgian Kempen and organized the Butterfly Opera that was broadcasted on the Dutch television in 1969. For many years he has been the informal mayor of the squatted artists’ village of Ruigoord (between Amsterdam and Haarlem).
Photo by Willem Otten
Jan Overduin (Scheveningen 1947).
Survival artist, bookseller and from 1976 resident photographer of the scene around houseboat de Witte Raven. Made reports ‘until death follows’ of IJzerdraat, Grootveld, Hoekert and others.
Max Reneman (Groningen 1923 – Palermo 1978).
Integrated his professions as a dentist and visual artist in the Stichting Openbaar Kunstgebit (Foundation for Artful Dentures), which he co-founded. Manufactured dentures with a built-in radio, with a zipper between the upper and lower dentures, with tacks instead of teeth, with mirrors on the front teeth, etc. He was awarded the Prix de Rome as a painter and produced a painted self-portrait with a frame of dozens of molars and teeth from his own practice. Co-founder and active practitioner of the Deskundologisch Laboratorium.
André Schmidt (Zwolle 1925 – Limburg 2016).
Was co-owner of a profitable advertising agency in which he pursued ‘the very big’. Sold his shares in 1966 and joined the Provo and Kabouter (Gnome) movement. From 1969, he resided for three years as a sannyasin with the world famous guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Puna (India) who gave him the name Swami Anand Adi.
Photo by Cor Jaring
Rob Stolk (Zaandam 1946 – Amsterdam 2001).
Activist in the context of Provo and the squatters’ movement. He was the owner of a one person printing company in which he published the historical magazine De Tand des Tijds under the motto “The Tooth of Time lags for you behind the facts and is published when it suits”.
In 1965, together with Luud Schimmelpennink, he developed the Provo White Bicycle Manifesto, which aimed at a car-free city center and the collective ownership of bicycles. At his wedding that same year, he transported his bride Saartje to the town hall on a white bicycle. The photo taken by Cor Jaring made the world press.
Arie Taal and Hraban Luyat. Photo by Jan Overduin
Arie Taal (Zwitserland 1947).
Opposite houseboat De Witte Raaf, he built a floating island of styrofoam blocks called ‘t Yland, with two picturesque garden houses and an ecological garden where a swan couple nests in the spring. For many years he acted as self-appointed informal carer for Kees Hoekert and had his own informal periodical called the Friese Geheime Dienst Bode.
Julius Vischjager (Amsterdam 1937-2020).
Journalist and publisher of the Daily Invisible, a one-page handwritten politically oriented newspaper distributed by him personally. Prime Minister Lubbers gave him the right of the last question during his weekly meetings with the media in the parliamentary press center Nieuwspoort. Vischjager caused a furore with his extraordinarily complicated arguments that caused much hilarity and with which only Lubbers could manage with the same absurdist logic.