What happens once daylight has faded and Rotterdam lights up? Who is moving through the streets, which locations stay awake, and what kind of narratives take place while most of us are asleep? In the exhibition Drawn: Rotterdam! Night Work, city artists Tessa Biemans, Peyman Fazeli and Steef Offerhaus each present their own perspective on this theme. Commissioned by Rotterdam City Archives and CBK Rotterdam, over the past few months the city artists ventured out to capture the theme ‘night in motion’. The end result will be on display at Kunsthal Rotterdam from Saturday 17 October.
The drawings brought together in Drawn: Rotterdam! Night Work offer fragmented glimpses into the many different aspects of Rotterdam by night. Together they make up a snapshot in time of a city that never stops moving, not even when it is dark.
Tessa Biemans
Tessa Biemans (1988) makes highly atmospheric works. Combined, the numerous chalk drawings she creates as a city artist make up a mosaic of Rotterdam by night: steaming bodies on a dancefloor, the flashing lights of an ambulance driving by, and the moonlit Maas river. Everyday scenes alternate with mysterious depictions, populated by shadowy figures and other supernatural entities. Biemans’ work thus creates space for what remains hidden in the light of day.
Peyman Fazli
Peyman Fazeli (1984) creates his works on a black background, to which he introduces light through refined drawings in pencil and charcoal. For Fazeli, this is not only a choice of materials, but also a way of thinking. The night alters what is visible and, in doing so, shifts our attention. This can also be seen in the work he created as a city artist: illuminated clouds, the glow of a street lamp or a bright spotlight cause various scenes to emerge from the darkness.
Steef Offerhaus
Steef Offerhaus (1994) is no stranger to Rotterdam nightlife. He previously worked as a graphic designer and organiser in the club scene. As a city artist, he therefore already had a clear idea of what he wanted to depict. Over the past period, he followed various communities into the night, including taxi drivers, graffiti writers and fast food restaurant employees. He translated the experiences he gained there into a number of collages. Offerhaus’ work creates a psychedelic universe: using a spontaneous signature style, he tells a flood of stories that unfold like a nocturnal trip.
Rotterdam city artists
Even before the bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940, but especially during the post-war reconstruction period, artists were already capturing changes in the city. Until the end of the 1980s, Rotterdam City Archives annually commissioned artists to make such drawings. Since 2018, this tradition has been reinstated in collaboration with CBK Rotterdam, and city artists have once again been adding to the collection of the Rotterdam City Archives. This year, the city artists were selected by a jury consisting of artist Pris Roos, Cindy Stegeman and Ove Lucas (CBK Rotterdam), Erika Hokke and Anna de Bruyn (Rotterdam City Archives), Thys Boer (N8W8 Rotterdam), and David Snels (Kunsthal Rotterdam curator). After the exhibition, the drawings by the city artists will be added to the collection of the Rotterdam City Archives and become part of its Rotterdam Collection.
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