In Memoriam Robert Jasper Grootveld

[Payaso]

Farewell to the spirit of the Sixties

Several of today's papers in the Netherlands bid a fond farewell to Robert Jasper Grootveld, a leading figure of the Sixties counter culture in Amsterdam. NRC Handelsblad describes him as "an artist" "a provocateur" and more intriguingly "an anti-smoking wizard". The paper praises him as the man who "declared Amsterdam to be the magical centre of the world" in the 1960s" and "a pioneer of mass non-conformity".

De Volkskrant pays tribute to Grootveld as "the face of the 1960s" and describes the impromptu "happenings" he staged in the Dutch capital as bringing a "symbolic and hilarious end to the narrow-minded bourgeois mentality of the post-war generation". True to the free spirit of the decade he embodied, he was the first Dutchman to publicly sell marijuana and dreamt of building a massive floating garden for the children of Amsterdam to play in.

He was also a man of contradictions, however. A self-declared "anti-smoking wizard" he slapped a big 'c' for 'cancer' on cigarette advertisements but paradoxically he remained a chain smoker all his life, a habit which eventually led to his death. But as the de Volkskrant notes, the campaign wasn't born of moralism but of fascination. "Grootveld was fascinated by addiction because he saw it as being anti-freedom. The addiction to smoking but also the addiction to advertising."

NRC Handelsblad comments "that he was a pioneer" in "transforming himself into a living artwork", while de Volkskrant concludes "he will mainly be remembered as a driving force for change in the 1960s, change that determines Amsterdam's hip reputation to this day."
~Courtesy Radio Netherlands

When living in Amsterdam my friend Lee Bridges the Cannabis Poet made sure that we met Robert, they were good friends dating back to the 1960s.

Lee also showed me where Robert grew the first outdoor cannabis in Amsterdam, on a floating garden by a canal boat near the harbor.

We sure are sad to hear of his passing and hope he is having one big great beautiful smokeout with the Cannabis Poet right now in heaven.

I imagine that in their personal heaven they are surrounded by endless piles of hashish, smoking themselves silly like caterpillars on top of mushrooms.

RIP Robert Jasper Grootveld

 

[FallenBuddha]

I first read about R.J Grootveld in an issue of high times back in the late 80's about the Dutch "Provos", and what role they played in the current status of dutch cannabis. I recall a picture of him at what was called the Afrikaanse druukstoor, dressed up as a bushman holding a marijuana plant in a pot. May Grootveld's soul float to its final reward on a plume of sweet blue smoke. R.I.P Robert.

peace -fb

 

[Payaso]

Amsterdam bids farewell to 1960's anarchist

De Volkskrant has a photograph of the commemoration of 1960's anti-establishment leader and self-styled anti-smoking magician Robert Jasper Grootveld, who died last week at the age of 76. He was one of the founders of the Provo movement (derived from the verb to provoke, nothing to do with Northern Ireland) which wanted to provoke the establishment by staging playful 'happenings' in central Amsterdam.

In the photograph are two men dressed in bright red gowns and masks, the latter adorned with the three white St Andrew's crosses which feature prominently in Amsterdam's city arms. The two, surrounded by a large crowd, are waving fire extinguishers to put out a fire they lit on top of Mr Grootveld's wooden coffin.

Fellow Provo founder Luud Schimmelpennink said: "Without Jasper, the image of Provo would never have become what it is today".

A fleet of 20 boats accompanied Robert Jasper Grootveld down the city canals and the Amstel river to the Zorgvlied cemetery, a few kilometres south of the city.