Succesful year for thirty-year-old Kunsthal
Dec. 28, 2022
With a busy holiday season in full swing, the Kunsthal is expecting to conclude the year with a total of 175,000 visitors, spread out over an eleven-month period. As a result of the COVID-19 measures, Kunsthal Rotterdam had to start off the year of its thirtieth anniversary behind closed doors. Although the public was still a bit hesitant in finding its way back to us during the spring, from June cultural life would once again blossom, with a huge number of (postponed) events and many openings. During Kunsthal Live on Sunday lots of people were even dancing again in the Museumpark. With a successful anniversary celebration, including the festival 30 Hours at the Kunsthal, numerous activities and a widely varied exhibition programme, this year the Kunsthal again succeeded in reaching out to many different audiences. Lovers of (fashion) photography, animation, design and art, including around thirty percent first-time visitors, encountered each other at the Kunsthal. For 2023, another extraordinary and high-contrast programme is waiting in the wings, including an exhibition about Rotterdam’s colonial past during the summer, and culminating in the autumn with a large-scale exhibition of today’s leading artist: Ai Weiwei.
During this past spring, the Kunsthal presented a career-spanning selection of works by Alexander Calder, as well as work by ten leading contemporary artists, in the international Kunsthal production Calder Now. The Netherlands’ best-known animation talents, Job, Joris & Marieke, presented their absurdist universe in the large HALL 1. With Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today, the Kunsthal put the spotlight on over a hundred women designers. During the autumn we rolled out the pink carpet for the famous fashion photographer Tim Walker, and for the exhibition In the Black Fantastic, guest curator Ekow Eshun brought seductive, exuberant works of artists from the African Diaspora to Rotterdam. There was also a lot of attention for talent development, including the seventh edition of the All you can Art Summerschool in the summer, and the ongoing programme Kunsthal Light. In May over 1100 students of the intermediate vocational educational institution (MBO) Albeda visited the Kunsthal for our first ever MBO Monday. For an entire day, the Kunsthal was exclusively open to these students, who, apart from visiting the exhibitions, could participate in an extensive programme that was organised and created by and for the students.
Kunsthal director Marianne Splint: “With photography, design, animation art, contemporary art, and a Summer School, the Kunsthal was able to show its strength as a magnet for, and a connector of, a large and diverse audience. I am proud of our high-quality exhibition programme, through which we continue to forge connections with the city and reach out to new audiences. With the help of many collaboration partners, including Rotterdam Pride, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, the Paulus Church, the Nationale Coalitie tegen Eenzaamheid (national coalition against loneliness), and Afrovibes, and with Kunsthal LIVE activities like KunstKoppels (ArtCouples), See you later Illustrator, and Masterclasses, the Kunsthal is as vivacious and surprising as ever. This past year we have also intensified our extremely impactful collaboration with Reakt, as part of which the All you can Art artists alternately work at different Reakt locations around the country.”
Kunsthal Rotterdam would like to thank all funds, sponsors, and partners for their generous contributions in 2022!
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