Art Index Rotterdam

What if we no longer view decay as failure, but as a fundamental starting point for design? If we view decay as part of a building’s life cycle, architecture can become a living platform that supports people and other life forms. In collaboration with BlueCity, this programme explores the possibility of designing for a single ecosystem, thereby initiating new ecological relationships.

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Art-Gang presents: Viscerally Gentle, an exhibition where about 15 artists join to show their art works. There will be textile art, installations, photography, paper art and more. All the different artists will be showcasing what interests them and the different ways they express that.

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This Week: Wissel 1287: Anne Kolbe presents Thijme Maassen

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This edition of the International Clinic, organised in collaboration with DutchCulture/TransArtists and led by Bojana Panevska, explores residency opportunities abroad through practical guidance and critical reflection. What happens during and after a residency, and how can creatives engage with these programmes in a regenerative and meaningful way?

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Building Narratives is a book that explores how stories can influence design. It provides insight into the processes, decisions and conversations that give rise to buildings. It was created by Kees Kaan, Manuela Triggianese, Yagiz Soylev and Alice Colombo, in collaboration with the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft and KAAN Architecten.

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Viscerally Gentle Art-Gang expo day 3 + performance night

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Jonas Lutz creates objects of quiet strength, where bold simplicity is held in balance with elegance and restraint.

His work is marked by a subtle playfulness: a continuous search for new forms, gestures, and possibilities, always grounded in a profound understanding of material. Since first encountering his pieces years ago, I have been drawn to their rare equilibrium between expression and precision.

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Erica Baltimore, Pim van Halem and Marianne van Maaren each bring a distinct visual sensibility to the exhibition. Baltimore’s lens-based practice moves between photography, film and staged image-making, opening narrative spaces that feel both intimate and constructed. Van Halem’s work is rooted in drawing: although trained in monumental design, graphics and ceramics, his practice has long been guided by the directness of paper, line and handwriting. His drawings suggest a concentrated relationship between gesture, thought and the empty page. Marianne van Maaren works across ceramics, painting and sculpture. Together, their works create a sensitive dialogue between image, material, memory and emotional resilience.

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What would you like to pass on to your future descendants? What kind of answers or experiences would you like to receive from your own ancestors? Dentro Di Nos Tempo is a workshop by Janilda Bartolomeu as part of the Another Island project. It invites Cape Verdeans in Rotterdam to co-create a symbolic time capsule. Bartolomeu does not view time as linear or one-dimensional; it can be experienced culturally and collectively, for example through the memories of the Cape Verdean diaspora.

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Since the opening of our Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly has become a vibrant place for workshops, lectures, and collective learning experiences. Every Saturday, we organize free workshops open to everyone, where creativity, connection, and personal expression are at the heart of the experience.

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Gallery curator Astrid de Pauw brings these artists together through her passion for drawings and works on paper. She particularly hopes to convey the intensity of the works, partly because the series is often shown in a limited selection. In contrast, now they can be experienced in their full scope.

Esther Schoonhoven draws the light in dark underlayers, where every scratch and brushstroke forms a new sentence in a grander story.

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Born in Liberia in 1970, Johnson Weree fled his war-torn homeland and has lived in Rotterdam since 1998. Without a fixed residence, he has continued to work with remarkable dedication, drawing every day in public places such as the library, the Pauluskerk, and McDonald’s. Over the past year, he created ten drawings especially for our gallery. These works will be presented together for the first time and offered for sale.

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(P)REVIEW III exists in the space between recollection and anticipation — a dialogue between what has been and what is yet to come. It reunites the artists who shaped the gallery's presence at Art Rotterdam, while opening its doors to new guest artists. In this celebration of both connection and discovery, we look forward to welcoming you.

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Choreographer Amparo González Sola invites you to slow down. In a time of constant acceleration, digitization, and doom scrolling—in which bodies threaten to disappear in streams of images and information—Gestures as Portals is an invitation to slow down and re-attune to the experiences of others.

Two performers share the space with the audience for five hours. Sitting or lying close by, a静止 choreography unfolds, growing from simple gestures. Movements are slowed down, repeated, held, reversed, and deepened. In this way, ‘portals’ to memories and to one another are created.

González Sola approaches gestures as carriers of experience. Bodies that take on forms in specific situations, but also as actions that are repeated, inherited, and passed on across generations and borders. The performance builds upon her earlier work While Taking Shape and was developed in 2025 at Marres in Maastricht, where it was performed daily for four weeks. This performance is part of the exhibition Lend Me Your Ears.

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The exhibition brings together three artists whose practices explore gesture, form and imagination. In her paintings, Inez Smit creates subtle abstract compositions where structure and spontaneity coexist. Dagmar Baumann works from the physical act of making, transforming traces of movement into paintings and sculptural forms. Anton Vrede's poetic sculptural language inspired by animals, myths and archetypal figures. Together, their works reveal distinct yet complementary approaches to abstraction, materiality and expression.

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This Week: Wissel 1288: Anne Kolbe presents Jelle Veldhuis.

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Laurien Dumbar uses photography to question painting, illusion and the material space of the image. Wim Havens brings together painting, print, video, performance and installation, combining geometric clarity with humour and social reflection. Karin Rianne Westendorp works through drawing, charcoal and erasure, creating fragile spaces where light, depth and attention slowly emerge.

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New Exhibition in the Project space: Bea Emsbach, drawings.

Bea Emsbach’s work unfolds through drawing as a space of psychological, bodily and metaphysical inquiry. Often using red ink, watercolour and brush-drawn forms, she creates images that seem to move between anatomy, myth, dream and anthropology. Her fragile yet intense visual language gives form to inner states, where the human figure appears both exposed and transformed.

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A new edition of A Mic of One’s Own, a series of collaborations between Kunstinstituut Melly and The Writer’s Guide (to the Galaxy)! Politics and poetics of anti-colonial resistance

Inspired by the exhibition Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme in Melly, we’re going to place the focus on the theme of “Resistance”.

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This Must Be the Place invites you to look again at your surroundings - not as stable ground, but as an assemblage of past lives, memories and future desires. The exhibition takes you through the eyes of three practitioners approaching home not as a fixed site, but as a shifting condition shaped by time, memory and access. Animator and filmmaker Tess Martin, artist Nael Quraishi and architect Tov Frencken highlight multi-layered perceptions of the domestic - exploring its definitions beyond the boundaries of architecture.

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In the exhibition 'The World Goes On', the work of artists Nico Parlevliet and Ton Kraayeveld is brought together for the first time.

The exhibition can be understood as a “match” between the two artists: a contest between the two-dimensional works of one artist and the often sound-producing, three-dimensional objects of the other. Yet there is no winner; rather, it is a “match” in the sense of a connection, a click between them — and *The World Goes On*!

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Guided by the artist’s performative speech, the audience is invited to walk along as the performance shifts between the white cube, open air, and the street. Make It Fit – A Life Script is a multidisciplinary performance exploring how language shapes authority, identity, and social norms. Moving between singing, conversation, and staged speech, the work examines the internalised script of “making it fit.”

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EDUCATION & PARTICIPATION SPACE

Since the opening of our Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly has become a vibrant place for workshops, lectures, and collective learning experiences. Every Saturday, we organize free workshops open to everyone, where creativity, connection, and personal expression are at the heart of the experience.

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Frank Taal Galerie is pleased to invite you to the opening of a co-curate a show with Galerie Van den Berge. Joyce, Tom, and Frank look forward to welcoming you to this special joint presentation.

Galerie van den Berge and Frank Taal Galerie share a strong common ground in their programs and their passion for contemporary art. Over the past two decades, Joyce, Tom, and Frank have regularly encountered each other at art fairs, first as colleagues, and increasingly as friends and admirers of each other’s gallery programs.

In this exhibition, they come together to highlight a shared curatorial sensibility, bringing their practices into dialogue through a careful balance and presentation of works by their artists.

Opening speech at 16.00 PM: Sven Schlijper-Karssenberg.

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The exhibtion will open in the presence of former Mayor of Rotterdam Ivo Opstelten.

Rotterdam pioneers of same-sex marriage celebrate silver jubilee with exhibition in Nieuw Charlois

Former mayor Ivo Opstelten will open the exhibition and, like current mayor Carola Schouten, plays a role in the new anniversary film.

Twenty-five years after becoming the first same-sex couple to marry in Rotterdam, the artist duo Gil & Moti will present a special anniversary exhibition in Nieuw Charlois from 13 June. With *Gil & Moti Wedding Project – Protect, 2001–2026*, they look back on a historic moment in the history of Dutch emancipation, while also exploring how love, equality and acceptance are viewed today.

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The meaning of transparency is, on its face, clear—it is, after all, a synonym for clarity. And yet, the term has been associated with a wealth of different concepts: The call for transparency in governance is presumed to empower those that are governed. But transparency turns adversarial when the state begins surveilling its citizens. Transparency can function as an element of modernist architecture, for example, when a glass facade enables light to travel fluidly between inside and outside. Or it operates as a trope of modernity itself, symbolising the ideals of openness and visibility, equality and freedom.

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*Your Silent Face* stems from a desire to move beyond photography and explore how an artwork takes shape materially and spatially. Camera and computer are only tools; the final form is an installation specially developed for Galerie Lecq, a project space in a former bridge keeper’s house. The opening will mainly take place outdoors, so please dress warmly. Parking is available nearby, and drinks will be provided. René Castelijn’s work reflects on being, non-being, wonder, alienation, and death.

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We Are Dreamers is a summer salon shaped by long days, warm light, and a sense of freedom. Following our winter salon When Flowers Sleep, this exhibition moves into a different rhythm, where time stretches and light lingers. Days unfold more slowly, colours deepen, and moments feel both fleeting and endless at once.

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Marion Scemama joins Field Recordings co-director Tim Leyendekker for a conversation about her work, which sits at the intersection of experimental cinema, photography and audiovisual anthropology. Together they turn to the origins of her practice and her long collaboration with artist David Wojnarowicz, which deeply shaped her work and is felt throughout this programme, as well as the practical reality of making radical cinema with limited means, from 1980s New York to the present.

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During this year’s Archive Day, NADD explores the deep interconnectedness of craftsmanship and archival processes. We examine how craft, archiving, remembrance and resistance converge in contemporary creation and archival practices. Our focus is on the creators of archives and the crafts they document, preserve and reinterpret.

At 17.00: Opening of the Collection Gallery and Just In #2. Nieuwe Instituut cordially invites you to the opening celebrations for two new exhibitions focusing on the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning: the Collection Gallery and Just In #2.

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This Week: Wissel #1289 De Artbutchers Pakken Het Weer Anders Aan

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'When the streets belonged to me.' presents recent work by Jeroen Arians, bringing together the series Find Footage and Conditional Prototypes. The exhibition centers around Jeroen Arians’ fascination with moments where worlds overlap; where ordinary, often discarded objects in the street unexpectedly form new compositions. By paying close attention to these crossings of context, Jeroen Arians reveals a poetic and sometimes surreal quality within the everyday.

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Piet Zwart MFA presents, 'Leisure Management' a graduation show. TENT and the Piet Zwart Institute Master Fine Art invite you to the graduation exhibition of the 2026 MFA cohort. Be among the first to be introduced to the emerging practices of these artists. Their work takes shape through a wide range of materials, techniques, and discourses, and explores themes such as socially constructed spaces, the expressive power of made and found materials, and the multifaceted aspects of identity.

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Free Saturday Workshop #3 — Prize for Messing Up. Since the opening of our Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly has become a vibrant place for workshops, lectures, and collective learning experiences. Every Saturday, we organize free workshops open to everyone, where creativity, connection, and personal expression are at the heart of the experience.

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For the duo exhibition of Niek Hendrix (1985, lives and works in Rotterdam) and Bert Frings (1972, lives and works in Rotterdam), NL=US Art presents two painting practices that approach the historical still life not as a closed tradition, but as an active system of images that is continuously reread and reconstructed.

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Marly Hendricks manages to capture a moment in a park with an impressionistic touch while Nora Tholhuijsen very carefully, pointillistic and colorful, picks out specific elements from a forest. Arthur Stam looks in a surrealistisch way to the space of the garden and Hendriekje van Houweninge creates her own nature in paper flowers.

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Kindly join us for an afternoon with Lisa Robertson on the occasion of Shimmer’s current exhibition Ageless, Ageless and the launch of her new book Riverwork.

Lisa will read from Riverwork and enter into conversation with author and translator Kate Briggs. In 2013, a student asked Lisa Robertson how she knew that the words she wrote were the right ones. “It is how they feel in the mouth,” is how I remember Lisa’s reply.

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In a world full of tensions and acceleration, 'Shelter for Design' challenges visitors to slow down, reflect, and seek connection.

The group show opens on Sunday, June 21 at iCOON. The bunker's original defensive function is redefined as a space for dialogue and optimism. Organized and curated by Berry Dijkstra and Helma Vlemmings, the exhibition is divided into four themes that provide a visual response to current events. Featuring a wide range of works by designers from home and abroad.

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The annual Friends’ Day for Members is back on 21 June. Nieuwe Instituut, the Kunsthal, the Natural History Museum Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Chabot Museum will be opening their doors to anyone who is a Friend of one of these cultural institutions in the Museumpark.

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To celebrate Rotterdam Architecture Month, this edition of Portfolio Sessions is all about architecture — and you can take part! Six experts from a variety of backgrounds have been invited to provide feedback to architects at the start of their careers. You could be one of them!

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This Week: Wissel 1290 De Artbutchers presents Wietse Eken

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Celebrating & connecting art and artists in Rotterdam South. 27 Jun: Feijenoord open studios. 28 Jun: Charlois open studios + closing dinner at O'tje Festival 18.00

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Exhibition PORTRAIT brings together more than thirty international artists in Rotterdam South ROTTERDAM – More than thirty artists from various countries will present their work at the end of June during the group exhibition PORTRAIT at C3 Studios in Charlois, Rotterdam. The exhibition is part of South Explorer, the annual event in which cultural venues in Rotterdam South open their doors to the public. Despite the title, the exhibition does not revolve exclusively around the traditional portrait. The organizers have specifically invited artists to interpret the concept completely freely. As a result, the work ranges from recognizable depictions of people to abstract, conceptual, and experimental approaches to identity, representation, and human presence. The exhibition takes place in the GYM of C3 - Studios on Huismansstraat in Charlois. The building houses approximately 115 artists and creative entrepreneurs and is considered one of the larger artist hubs in Rotterdam South. The participating artists represent a wide range of nationalities, disciplines, and backgrounds. PORTRAIT opens on Saturday, June 27 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM during the kick-off of South Explorer. During South Explorer, dozens of galleries, studios, artist collectives, and cultural initiatives spread across Rotterdam South open their doors to visitors. The event offers the public the opportunity to discover the cultural offerings of the district. After the opening, the exhibition remains accessible on Sunday, June 28, and on June 1, 2, and 3. Curated by Lotus Rooijakkers, Wim Havens and Ilse Kauffman.

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The Finissage has been postponed until 3 July due to the heatwave.

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Exhibition Opening with live performance by Amber Mertens (piano) and Sannah de Haas (violin).

Nature is the inspiration for all three artists in creating their drawings and paintings. A common feature is the rich use of color in an almost transparent manner. Annelies de Greef uses the white of the canvas to depict memories of a landscape in heavily diluted oil paint. Dina Vos uses pen and pencil to reveal patterns in the man-made landscape from a network of fine lines. Hanneke van der Werf uses the transparency of ink to blend colors layer upon layer into fluid worlds. Curator Astrid de Pauw brings these artists together in a light summer exhibition on view at WTC Rotterdam Art Gallery during the months of July and August.

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Laurien Dumbar uses photography to question painting, illusion and the material space of the image. Wim Havens brings together painting, print, video, performance and installation, combining geometric clarity with humour and social reflection. Karin Rianne Westendorp works through drawing, charcoal and erasure, creating fragile spaces where light, depth and attention slowly emerge.

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Exhibition #154 with Efrat Zehavi, Lotti van der Gaag, Onno Poiesz, Piet Tuytel, Bob Bonies, Sigrid Calon, Matti Kujasalo and Jan van Toorn.

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This Week: Wissel 1291 The Artbutchers presents Lukas Vonk.

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Art evening: every first Friday of the month free art in the heart of Rotterdam Every first Friday of the month between 18 and 21 hours, WORM, MaMA and Kunstinstituut Melly open their doors free of charge during the bustling Kunstavond in Rotterdam. The place where you see the future of art with your own eyes, not the established order, but the experiment and the innovation.

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"This exhibition did not begin with a theme; it began with a constellation. A constellation that led to a question that has never fully gone away: how do we come together?"

Participants: Domas van Wijk, Anna Musikhina, Mikołaj Stojanowicz, Tair Uria, Junying Wu.

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Dinner among the artworks? At Garage Rotterdam, you can. On Friday evening, July 3, art lovers are invited to take a seat at the table surrounded by the works in How To: Living Through Instructions. Together with the curator and several artists, guests will discuss the exhibition in an intimate setting. The four-course dinner will be prepared by chef Marnix Benschop. De Gouden Ton will provide the wine pairing.

Natafelen RSVP info@garagerotterdam.nl

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How can a space for collective creation be established within a community? Drawing on their own experiences in the Cape Verdean community, filmmakers Nuno Boaventura Miranda and Janilda Bartolomeu and sound artist Kems Kriol discuss their collaboration on Na Caminhu Pa Acácia, the film at the heart of the Another Island exhibition.

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The exhibition brings together three artists whose practices explore the relationship between gesture, form and imagination. In her paintings, Inez Smit creates subtle abstract compositions in which structure and spontaneity coexist, inviting attentive looking. Dagmar Baumann works from the physical act of making itself, allowing traces of movement and handwriting-like gestures to remain visible across paintings and sculptural forms. Anton Vrede's poetic sculptural language inspired by animals, myths and archetypal figures, where playful invention meets a profound reflection on human experience. Together, their works reveal distinct yet complementary approaches to abstraction and expression.

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Join our 5th edition of the Books Are Bridges Art Book Fest at the clubhouse of SNV community garden with over 30 local and (inter)national artist publishers, who will present their latest publications. Expect a lively day filled with outdoor book presentations, a film screening in a garden house, workshops for all ages, conversations over books, music, tasty treats and beats.

Address: Roel Langerrakweg 33.

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