Kunsthal Rotterdam

The All you can Art 2020 team!

The All you can Art-family: Quinda Verheul

“All you can Art is like a pressure cooker and a positive chaos. Everything is buzzing and you can do anything you want, as long as you take responsibility for your own project.”

This year, All you can Art made connections in the city from guest location Kunstruimte Crooswijk. This art space is founded by Quinda Verheul. She was not only the host at Crooswijk, but being an artist herself, she was one of the people that made sure this year’s Summer school was a tremendous and wonderful learning experience. Time to look back on this summer with Quinda.

“Taking on different roles during All you can Art was very interesting. As an artist, working with the students, I noticed how their progress rocketed in only six weeks. From shy and timid youngsters, they grew out to be confident creatives in no time. Being the host in Crooswijk, I saw that All you can Art can work as a catalyst for the neighbourhood. I received tons of responses from residents, who normally don’t visit museums, but loved to join in and learn new things. There were also a few neighbours that spontaneously dropped by and shared their craft, such as welding and spray painting.”

“For me, it was very freeing to join in with the students when we were creating a performance together. I had the chance again to kick off my shoes, join in and feel the creative energy flowing. It was like pushing a reset button. One of the highlights of this summer was learning what you can accomplish in just a few days, with very little means, by working together.”

Presentation Summer school certificates

For six weeks, the Summer school students have learned, created, encountered, discovered, painted, performed and even welded. Yesterday the enthusiastic group of all ages and backgrounds received their Summerschool certificate, with a personal speech for everyone and some final good advice.

Under the guidance of the artists of All you can Art, the students experienced a unique and inspiring summer developing their talents. For the team it was also a pleasure guiding this beautiful group of people. We can't wait to see what the future holds for them! 

Portrait art

Together with the artist David Bade, the students set of to meet elderly people during the final week of the All you can Art Summer School. As a result of the circumstances surrounding Covid-19, especially the elderly are often overlooked, while making art and participating, being included in society, could actually mean the world to them.

Fortunately, creative people are able to think in terms of solutions instead of in limitations, so several short and safe meetings took place, from which some beautiful portrait artworks evolved!

OPEN Rotterdam: We Sell Reality

Another wonderful edition of OPEN Rotterdam. This time about the artists of the We Sell Reality collective. This is the third year that they are participating in All you can Art. The group consists of both documented and undocumented artists.

They are presenting themselves to the outside world as a collective in order to offer protection to people staying in the Netherlands without a residence permit. Behind the label ‘We Sell Reality’ it is safe for people to go public as it literally offers undocumented individuals a place to hide and a voice in society.

Over the past few weeks, We Sell Reality went into the Crooswijk neighbourhood with an ice-cream van. The local children were offered an ice-cream in exchange for answering a question concerning our policy on refugees. For instance: Why do people need passports? Or: Who decides who can stay in the Netherlands and who can’t? After that, the children set to work with the artists to creatively work out their ideas.

The collection of answers given by the children serves as the foundation for a proposal for a new refugee policy – originated from the free minds of children. The artists hope to present this proposal to policy makers and politicians soon!

Meet the talented All you can Art family: the artist Goretti Pombo

Goretti Pombo (1994, Curaçao) has had a passion for art since a very young age. She was therefore looking forward to visiting the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB) with her class. But she was rather shocked by what she saw there. This had nothing to do with the ‘proper’ kind of art that she had envisioned. During the summer of 2014, she took an entrance exam at the Utrecht School of the Arts, but was told that her portfolio and the assignment she had handed in were still below standard. She was advised to return and try again another year. This prompted her to take a better look at what was going on at the IBB…

At the IBB she was offered a chance to participate in the two-year prep-course and was encouraged to experiment, discover, and build her portfolio. A few months later, she was feeling like a fish in water, and was admitted to the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 2016. Even better: this summer she graduated!

Each summer when All you can Art descends on the Kunsthal, she drops by to take in a ‘healthy dose of IBB’. And this year, two works from her graduation presentation are also shown at the Kunsthal.

Pinhole camera workshop

Did you know that you can ‘simply’ make photographs with coffee pots, empty (beer) cans and many other things? The Summer School students put this to the test and – apart from participating in a whole range of other experiments and tasks – set to work with their own pinhole cameras that use tiny holes instead of lenses.

Episode 3 OPEN Rotterdam

“You’re able to do more than you think” 
Talent development is an important component of All you can Art. In this edition of OPEN Rotterdam, former Summer School participant Dik Kreuk tells us what All you can Art has meant to him. We zoom in on Tyrone Paulina who is one of this summer’s students. And we see Shardenia Felicia working on her final presentation at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. She is an IBB alumnus, the prep-school on Curaçao from which All you can Art evolved. The message all three of them want to convey is: “Never give up, you’re able to do more than you think!”

“All you can Art stirs up the imagination in Rotterdam”

Dutch newspaper Trouw published an article about the jubilee edition of All you can Art! Read the story, about among others Roxette Capriles and Pris Roos here. 

First episode of OPEN Rotterdam

This year another beautiful series about All you can Art on OPEN Rotterdam! In the first episode the artists are moving into the neighbourhood of Crooswijk, local resident Henk gives a paint spraying workshop and the week is rounded up with word art.

Ripening Process
Location: Kunsthal

A part of this year’s All you can Art is the ever evolving and growing jubilee exhibition at the Kunsthal Auditorium. Striking examples of inspiring projects and remarkable encounters from the past five years are on display. This exhibition is in a constant state of flux and growing: not only the artist’s and student’s projects fill the space, but some works of IBB-alumni have also been added.

After studying at IBB Curaçao, Eugenie Boon continued at HKU and graduated with the work ‘Ripening Process’. Her multi-disciplinary works revolve around her upbringing at Curacao and the island's historical relation to the Netherlands. This work is about upbringing and education: the exchange between parents raising their children but also receiving an education of their children in return. And on a higher level: the symbolization of the Netherlands as parent and Curacao as the child.

In August, Boon will also continue the project ‘Simia’ during All you can Art,  so stay tuned for more!

Letter to Heaven
Location: Kunsthal

Entering the Kunsthal Auditorium, you stumble upon a tall construction of written pieces of paper. Artist Ko de Kok invites visitors to write down their favourite word, so they can create a framework of positive energy. This ‘Letter to Heaven’ frames the work-in-progress portrait of recently deceased Rotterdam artist Henri van Zanten. Ko wants to pay tribute to this ‘omni-artist’, who was his good friend and inspiration. In his work the visual, layered and detailed portrait creates an interesting dynamic with the expressive words.

This is the first year Ko joins the All you can Art family. “I am amazed how this project creates an accessible environment where the public comes together and connects with the artists and the artworks. It’s so great to see my work grow so fast because of the many people that come by and contribute to it. The tall space of the Auditorium also allows it to flourish.”

'The Dead Angle'
Location: Kunsthal

Not only visitors and Summer school students join All you can Art at the Kunsthal, participants of Via Kunst can be found at the Auditorium this Summer on a weekly basis. They created their own studio, named 'The Dead Angle’. Their art project is inspired by the Mexican holiday ‘Día de los Muertos’. On the Day of the Dead the spirits of the deceased return and are celebrated by their descendants. It is a colourful and festive celebration of life. The symbol of the skull is an element that you see frequently during this holiday, represented by masks and food (skulls made out of sugar, for example). The people working here, try to enlighten the common concept of death that most of us share. Instead of the sadness and fear that we often associate with death, we are invited to look at death from another point of view: The Dead Angle.

Via Kunst is part of NAS Rotterdam, an organisation for shelter in the broadest sense of the word. Their studio Via Kunst is an open atelier where everyone in need of someone to talk to can stop by to make art together. A great partner of All you can Art!

First day of Summer school
Location: Kunsthal

The Summer school is off to a great start! All of the Summer school students gathered for the first time, at the Kunsthal Auditorium. For the next six weeks, these 25 people of all ages, backgrounds and educational levels will be developing their creative skills.

One of the first assignments was to introduce themselves through paint, on a mouth mask. Not only a good way to get to know each other, but very handy for travelling between the Kunsthal and Kunstruimte Crooswijk, where they will be spending their Summer.

Fiery Mural
Location: Kunstruimte Crooswijk

This month, artist Roxy Capriles is working on her mural at Kunstruimte Crooswijk. Feel free to stop by and join her!

This wall painting is an ever evolving, fleeting project, that can’t exist without the (visual) dialogue between Roxy and the public. One day the wall will look completely different than the next week. The images can be painted over just as quickly by the next visitor, so make a picture of your work!

For the artist, the theme of fire is the exit point in this work. Fire is an element that can explosively take over space, that can be passed on. This is something Roxy wants to reach with the mural as well. She enters into dialogue with every ‘guest painter’ to search for their inner fire, so anyone can contribute in their own way.
 

Kick-off All you can Art 5
Location: Kunstruimte Crooswijk

All you can Art 5 is on! Musicians of the New Orleans Band formed a swinging parade along the Crooswijkseweg last Saturday. Students of the MBO Theaterschool Rotterdam performed together with artist David Bade in his sculptural performance 'De Kunstkwakzalver' (‘The Art Quack’).

During this festive kick-off of All you can Art 5, Crooswijk was introduced to the team of artists and Summerschool students. They can’t wait to give everyone, truly everyone, the chance to participate this summer, to make art together, to learn and to discover. All summer long at the Kunsthal and at guest location Kunstruimte Crooswijk. Come by and join in!

All you can Art takes over the Kunsthal Auditorium

David Bade and the team of IBB artists are here for the fifth year in a row to create art with you all summer long. During the first weekend of the jubilee edition of All you can Art, visitors experienced the practice-based approach of the IBB Curaçao artists first-hand. All summer long, participants will be working on joint artworks and projects in the Kunsthal Auditorium and in Kunstruimte Crooswijk (art space Crooswijk). Here, visitors can find out for themselves that the creative process of art is just as worthwhile as showing the finished work.

Artist Liesbeth Labeur will be working in the Auditorium of the Kunsthal in the month of July. Labeur's drawings show an intimate, inward-looking world. In the same way, she works with groups of people from different cultures. In this way she allows all living worlds and manuscripts in her work to speak the language of art together.