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“Visitors experience rich diversity in contemporary art from different points of view”

Rotterdam will revolve around culture and contemporary art during Art Rotterdam Week 2016.

Art lovers will have the opportunity to visit numerous art and design fairs, unique exhibitions, site fairs, open studios and pop-up shows during the event from 10 – 14 February 2016.

One of the event’s most popular attractions is Art Rotterdam, which is regarded as the Netherlands’ leading international fair in the field of new art. 

“As always, this seventeenth edition brings you the latest developments in visual art in a variety of exhibition concepts,” explains FonsHofs, Art Rotterdam’s director.

“Visitors experience rich diversity in contemporary art production from different points of view: video art at Projections, installations and performances at Intersections, the latest generation of Dutch artists in Prospects & Concepts and young galleries with solo presentations in the New Art Section.

With the abundance of ‘young art’ and the well-balanced mix of commercial and non-commercial presentations,

Art Rotterdam distinguishes itself from its foreign competitors that much too often have developed into art fairs for millionaires.”

House from Detroit at Art Rotterdam

Detroit was once a prospering city with 1,8 million inhabitants. Due to the economic crisis, Detroit today is a ghost town of fewer than 700,000 inhabitants, with chaos, decline and crime as a result.

Homes are sold at auction for 1,000 dollars to prevent whole streets from falling vacant. Houses fall into decay and are being torn down with bulldozers all the time.

Ryan Mendoza, visual artist, born and raised in New York, lives and works in both Berlin and Naples. In 2013 he returned to the US after living abroad for 20 years.

It wasthen he saw the grim reality of today’s Detroit. Mendoza bought a home in Detroit for less than 1,000 dollars.

Now it has been torn down, disassembled and shipped to Europe in containers. Mendoza uses the destroyed Detroit home to tell a story.

Mendoza: “I will be one lucky artist indeed to freeze in time a piece of my country’s history, and freeze in time myself along with it : through salvaging one house from demolition, and by transporting it and rebuilding it at Art Rotterdam and eventually at the Verbeke Foundation in Belgium, I will give people from all over Europe the chance not only to walk into one man’s memories, but to walk also into one country’s collective aspirations and unanticipated shortcomings.”

Unique location

Art Rotterdam attracted 25,000 visitors in 2015. The 2016 edition will be held again at the Van Nelle Factory, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Guided tours through the characteristic factory complex will take place daily during the art fair.

Throughout the festival week, free shuttle busses will be running between the Van Nelle Factory and the other art hotspots in the city: AVL-Mundo, Museum Quarter and Wilhelminapier.

Some of the other highlights during Art Rotterdam Week:

Object Rotterdam – 12 – 14 February 2016

The Rotterdam Contemporary Art Fair takes place in the Cruise Terminal, a beautiful and bright space, with a view of the Maas River.

65 galleries present their best contemporary art works. The fair is celebrating its fifth anniversary with an extra-festive and elaborate side programme.

New feature: Secret Art Cinema, presenting video art.

‘Ugo Rondinone – Vocabulary of Solitude’  –  13 February – 29 May 2016

45 life-like, life-size sculptures of clowns are the centerpiece of his first solo exhibition in the Netherlands; ‘Ugo Rondinone -Vocabulary of Solitude’.

On the floor of the Bodon galleries, covering 1,500 m2 in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the visitor will move between the life-size clown figures and notice that each of the clowns is engaged in an everyday activity.

The clown standing in the centre of everything and in the middle of nothing is, in this huge installation, the personification of unhappiness.

The installationalso comprises existing and new works from his colour spectrum series, half mandalas, windows and thousands of rainbow drawings.

Rotterdam Celebrates the City – 2016

Rotterdam is flourishing like never before. Seeing the dynamic port city with its contemporary architecture, it is hard to imagine that the city centre was destroyed during World War II.

Ever since, Rotterdam has been working hard to create the metropolis it has become today.

In 2016, looking back on 75 years of reconstruction, the city is celebrating and looks ahead to the future.

MuseumBoijmans Van Beuningen is celebrating the city with a group exhibition entitled ‘Project Rotterdam’.

On a scale not seen before, in 2016 the museum will present a group event by artists and designers working in Rotterdam.

Scheduled to start in February 2016 during Art Rotterdam Week, the project will introduce the public to the artistic scope and strengths of these creative talents.

As summer approaches, the museum will fill a growing number of its rooms with new and existing work by more than fifteen young artists and designers, including Koen Taselaar, Wouter Venema, Melle Smets, Christien Meindertsma and Weronika Zielinksa.

Read More: www.artrotterdamweek.com