Operatic stillness
By Simone Zeefuik Notes on a loving, part 1. For Jeanine van Berkel, whose imagination and kindness inspire me. It’s exactly because she’s not looking at anyone that I know we’re seen. Not watched but…
Read moreUnbothered, still
By Simone Zeefuik Notes on a loving, part 2 In the most beautiful scenarios, speechlessness results in a reconsideration of the vocabularies we choose. Depending on the conversations we hope to have,…
Read moreA game of combative aspirations
Wilma Sütö Like a huge sundial the sculpture stands on the quay; its shadow casting a capricious line ahead. It is a new beacon in Rotterdam: The Plait by Kalliopi Lemos. The sculpture reaches up…
Read moreDow Jones Dow Jones
Mark Poysden I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.
Read moreTom Morton: Commission
In his 2010 film Commission, Erik van Lieshout is faced with a problem. Having agreed to make a work in response to the Zuidplein mall in Rotterdam South – a poor suburb of the city…
Read moreIt’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry
Around 7.5 billion years from now, the sun will destroy the Earth. If humanity’s descendants still populate this planet (an increasingly unlikely scenario, given how enthusiastically we are hastening our own extinction), they will be…
Read moreCommission
In his 2010 film Commission, Erik van Lieshout is faced with a problem. Having agreed to make a work in response to the Zuidplein mall in Rotterdam South – a poor suburb of the city…
Read moreLe Tamanoir
Thanks to its title, the sculpture is recognizable as an anteater, with its high back and typical tubular snout touching the ground, nosing. Without this title, the sculpture could be an abstract construction and the…
Read moreWilhelmina
Baroness Charlotte van Pallandt – although she was raised in an extremely protective setting – was allowed to take painting lessons with Albert Roelofs, son of the well-known painter Willem Roelofs. In 1919 she married…
Read moreThe Destroyed City
The Destroyed City is without doubt Rotterdam’s best-known sculpture. It also occupies a special place in the oeuvre of its maker Ossip Zadkine. Not only is it his largest sculpture but it is one of…
Read moreThe Farewell
In Umberto Mastroianni’s The Farewell two highly abstract figures are fused to form a compact mass. The couple consists of segment-like and angular planes, in which intermingled legs, torsos, arms and heads can only be…
Read moreThe Footballer
Henk Chabot, mainly known as a painter, but who was also very active as a sculptor in the 1920s and 1930s, profited during the Depression from Rotterdam’s increasing interest in embellishing the city with sculptures.
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