Overview exhibition with the work of Rotterdam talents who were given space to experiment thanks to the Research & Development scheme. The exhibition showed the ambition and topicality of the Rotterdam art world. Shift & Drift was put together by guest curator Eelco van der Lingen.
O&O scheme
Shift & Drift marked the fifth anniversary of the O&O scheme. This scheme for special projects, residencies, publications and research has existed since 2010 and was established by CBK Rotterdam to stimulate exceptional projects by Rotterdam artists, to enable them to deepen their professional practice and to be able to profile themselves more strongly locally and nationally.
Guest curator Eelco van der Lingen (at that time director and curator at NEST, The Hague) was involved for three years in the committee that assessed the applications for the R&D subsidies.
17 artists from Rotterdam
The exhibition featured work by 17 artists who, with their R&D contribution, explored new possibilities in their work. Sjoerd Westbroek based his drawings on 'found footage'. His drawings slowly became more abstract and increasingly removed from the source material. Wouter Venema immersed himself in a quest through various disciplines and showed a series of prints. The photos of Lucian Wester seem to want to deny the passage of time. He made color photographs using an old technique. Maarten Janssen is fascinated by systems; he presented self-made systems, of which it is unclear or even irrelevant how the result relates to his systematic process. V&B (Ellemieke Schoenmakers and Alex Jacobs) introduced an old concept into a new era with a monumental painting full of paintings, based on the 17th century art gallery genre.
For several artists, the R&D scheme supported their ambition to conduct research abroad. For example, Ine Lamers special places in Russia and undertook Fatima Barznge a journey to her native region in Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, on the basis of which she created paintings in which she gives her memories and history a place. Lorelinde Verhees attended The Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles, the oldest artist-run school in California. Jan Adriaans worked at SeMA Nanji Residency in Seoul on a film about one of the city's universities. 'The Hongik' rumour', shows the musings of a fictional student. Simon Kentgens examined the images on food packaging – he went in search of these locations and took the viewer on a journey through a large commercial landscape. Efrat Zehavi, who works a lot with puppets or characters, went to Prague to learn the classical animation craft from the best puppet animators and to create an animation like a visual LSD trip, in which logic, aesthetics and rhythm are sometimes used, but just as easily contradicted.
The R&D contribution gave many artists the opportunity to explore new techniques and principles. Onno Poiesz recycles design ideas that are in danger of being lost. With the R&D scheme he researched new techniques and materials. For Jan van de Pavert the O&O was a path of wandering and trying. His paintings are reminiscent of the social realism of the Soviet Union, combined with Latin American influences. Kiki Lamers changed her oeuvre by taking a radical leave of painting. Anita Hrnics works with texts in which she plays with clichés and social identity. She wrote archetypal gossip stories that were spread throughout the exhibition space. Kevin gallagher en Timmy van Zoelen developed new work for the exhibition.
Publication
The publication 'Research & Development. Special projects, residencies, publications and research by Rotterdam artists 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013′, reports on the results of the first four years of this scheme. The book contains 172 projects by Rotterdam artists, in which it becomes visible how the visual arts are continuously connected to society.