May 19 to May 22 was Art Rotterdam, taking place in the second biggest city in the Netherlands, Rotterdam. The fair is one of the city's biggest and most anticipated, with a focus on contemporary art and its historical connections to the city, famous for its rich art culture.
“For an increasing number of art lovers, Art Rotterdam is the attractive alternative within the international field of art fairs and attracts more visitors, both domestic and international, every year,” said Art Rotterdam Director Fons Hof.
The fair featured a fleet of talented artists, among such are Inez and Vinoodh, Sarah Maple, Viviane Sassen, and Cian-Yu Bai.
Cindy Sherman (The Gentlewoman), 2019 © Inez & Vinoodh / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery
Sherman, who has been dressing up in grotesque costumes and masks for 50 years, featured in The Gentlewoman. The work, photographed by fashion photographers Inez and Vinoodh and presented by The Ravestijn Gallery, poses the question: what is the significance of the meanings we so preciously attach to these worldly matters? How can we tell if they’re genuine or artificial?
Sherman started out as a fine arts major in college but soon discovered her passion for photography shortly after. “There was nothing more to say through painting. I was meticulously copying other art, and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead,” she told The Gentlewoman.
Sarah maple, Labour of Love, Woman Problem, 2022 , 148 x 210 mm, silkscreen, customised, numbered and signed with pencil, booth 61, KochxBos Gallery
Another work featured was Sarah Maple’s Labour of Love (2022) presented by the Kochxbos Gallery, made especially for Art Rotterdam.
A powerful statement of the struggles of motherhood society chooses to neglect, Maple seeks to bring recognition to the labour that is motherhood—that is, the undervalued, underappreciated work of parenting that too often falls majorly on the mother. The installation is a 650-piece work, with a photo documenting each time her newborn was fed over a three-month period.
“Raising a child is seen as a female task, not a real job. Thus unpaid and undervalued. Addressing this and rectifying the situation is the unfinished work of feminism,” she said in her artist statement.
Strix, 2022, Digital c-print on Hahnemuhle paper, collage cut outs mounted on foam board, 43 x 33cm, © Viviane Sassen, courtesy of Stevenson Amsterdam
Several works of Viviane Sassen and Cian-Yu Bai were also featured, including Strix (2022) which depicts a parrot-human hybrid seemingly resting on a rock.
Presented by STEVENSON, Sassen is known for her abstract use of the human body, often mixing and moshing both objects and other human body parts together to create visual oddities.
“If it’s only a body shape then it becomes more universal in a way, it’s not about that particular person any more, it becomes more open, it’s more about humanity,” she said in an interview for HOT MIRROR.
“It’s an illusion that we can truly get to know someone through a picture.”
