The eye-catching posters and logos of the Rotterdam design agency 75B are unmissable additions to our cityscapes. The exhibition Fiddling around — a knowing wink to the experimental and playful working method of 75B founders Rens Muis and Pieter Vos — brings together 25 years of creative design. Based on personal stories and sketches, the exhibition shows how 75B arrives at its striking flyers, posters, logos, and trailers that never shy away from humour and controversy.
Muis (1974) and Vos (1971) form the creative mind behind 75B, a name functioning as an abstract code that could allude to a house number, pencil strength, bra size, plan B, and more. Muis and Vos established their design agency in the 1990s, immediately making a name for themselves in the cultural scene with their playful flyers for venues like the legendary nightclubs RoXY and NOW&WOW. Assignments for International Film Festival Rotterdam, Susan Bijl, Ro Theater, de Doelen, LantarenVenster, and Mondriaan Fund soon followed. Experimentation is the point of departure of both the commissioned and autonomous work of 75B. Muis and Vos, for instance, play with language and images, preferably without having a preconceived objective. This working method results in conceptual designs with a humorous twist, such as the posters for the pop music venue Annabel. In these colourful posters, 75B is positioning Annabel as a seventeen year old girl who has drawn the posters herself and is inviting you to her parties. Fiddling Around is also presenting autonomous work by Muis and Vos, including their large-scale, colourful painting with slogans like ‘is dit niks’ and ‘alles komt goed’ — meaning something like ‘would this work?’ and ‘everything will be alright’, something Muis and Vos say to each other all the time — and Woven Cities, a large tapestry on which the Rotterdam coat of arms has been portrayed by means of iconic logos and symbols. On the occasion of the exhibition, 75B will design a number of unique posters. These posters, no two of which are alike, will be adorning the streets of Rotterdam, Utrecht, Amsterdam, and The Hague from 22 April.
About 75B
75B was established in 1997 and today consists of a team of six designers, led by Rens Muis and Pieter Vos. 75B won various awards, including the Dutch Design Award (2009), the Theaterafficheprijs (2010), and the China International Poster Biennal (2009). Work by 75B has been incorporated in several collections, including those of SFMOMA (San Francisco), Rotterdam City Archives, Museum Rotterdam, Stedelijk Museum Breda and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Muis and Vos published a variety of articles, held lectureships, and gave talks, workshops, and guest lessons at academies in the Netherlands and abroad.
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OPEN EXTRA
Monday 29 April 10.00 - 17.00 hrs.
This holiday the Kunsthal will be open extra on Monday, 29 April from 10:00 hrs until 17:00 hrs.
CLOSED
Saturday 27 April 10.00 - 17.00 hrs.
On King's Day, Saturday, 27 April, the Kunsthal will be closed.
