If there is such a thing as 'the Rotterdam' in art, it is often referred to as socially critical, confrontational and in-your-face. Sense and Sensitivity introduced a number of young Rotterdam artists whose work is characterized by great sensitivity, attention to artistic research, and an aesthetic perspective.
Scarlett Biscotti presented her new film The Sun Shines in Kiev, which focuses on Russian filmmaker Shevchenko. In 1986, he was one of the first to be present on site after the Chernobyl disaster and to record the consequences of the disaster. His film reel turned out to have inexplicable white spots—the result of the harmful radiation released during the Chernobyl disaster. Visible evidence of this invisible phenomenon that the Russian government would rather have denied.
Research is an essential part of the artistic practice of Susanne Kriemann. She presented the results of her research into the political-ideological issue surrounding a monument of Pharaoh Ramses, which is erected in the public space of Cairo. The statue has suffered greatly from air pollution. The dilemma for the city government was: should the statue remain as a symbol of a proud Egypt, or should it be preserved in a museum as a symbol of a past history? Emotions ran high.
Toine Klaassen worked in TENT in his Laboratory for Contemporary Archaeology. Klaassen draws attention to the poetry of the unsightly, the small and the neglected. He collects discarded objects in his environment without a preconceived plan and then gets to work with them. The work is often created in front of the public in a performative setting, in which he does not shy away from the absurd. Or as Klaassen himself states: 'If you catch a butterfly with your hands, the powder comes off its wings and a rag remains.'
Boris van Hoof showed Moving Portrait, an ingenious installation in which the 16mm film projector plays a leading role. Three projectors run film strips in an endless loop. The strips are guided along a frame of metal tubes. The image is empty, meaningless, until a face emerges from the interplay of the strips, the face of Boris van Hoof. The use of celluloid has something nostalgic, but a nostalgia that Van Hoof uses in a plea for authenticity and uniqueness.
The work of Axel Reusch can still just about be called painting, despite its object-like character. The work is unapproachable and inscrutable. Some objects are mounted on the wall, others stand on the floor or lean against the wall. The world that Reusch depicts is intimate and close. He refers to things from everyday life: objects from the street or from the house. Light, shadow, space, they are not depicted but created with simple means.
The work of Lizan Freijsen was seen as a subtle exhibition design and parasitic intervention. Freijsen has been working for years on a Stain Archive, a collection of damp spots and mould derived from existing stains from houses in Rotterdam. Parasitizing on the architecture of TENT, the stains left a connecting trail through the spaces. They are signs of decay, of nature that can never be tamed, transformed into an unusual source of beauty, irritation or inspiration.