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With a new location in prospect -Ahoy Rotterdam- Art Rotterdam also welcomes a new main sponsor: DHB Bank. To introduce our new partner to the Rotterdam art scene, a city trip for DHB was planned last November 19, with visits to Kunstinstituut Melly, Brutus, Atelier Van Lieshout, Roof-A Gallery and Galerie Weisbard. Both Manuela and Pienk, VIP managers of Art Rotterdam, and Mustafa Beker, Head of Art Finance and Business Devolopment DHB Bank and MarCom team DHB Bank: Folkert Oosting and Martijn Blom were impressed by the hospitable receptions at the various locations, the interesting conversations and the diverse exhibition programs. It is clear that both Team Art Rotterdam and Team DHB are looking forward to the upcoming edition in Ahoy and the Art Rotterdam VIP program in the city.
Okan Balköse, CEO of DHB Bank, shares why the bank is the main sponsor: “As a bank with deep roots in the city, we are proud of our partnership for the 26th edition of Art Rotterdam at Ahoy. Our support reflects our belief in the importance of keeping art accessible to everyone. Contemporary art challenges us to see the future differently, just as savings opens the door to new possibilities and space to look ahead.”
DHB Bank is a Dutch savings bank where you can save online. Its headquarters have been located in Rotterdam for over 30 years.
Over the years, the city has become its home base, which is why DHB Bank is the proud main sponsor of Art Rotterdam.
During Art Rotterdam, for the first time in Rotterdam Ahoy, the 13th edition of Prospects will take place featuring the work of no fewer than 116 starting artists. The Mondriaan Fund organizes the Prospects exhibition annually to boost the visibility of starting artists. Its proximity to Art Rotterdam allows art professionals and collectors, as well as a wide range of art lovers, to become acquainted with the work of these promising artists.
”The new location at Rotterdam Ahoy presents exciting opportunities as we host the largest edition of Prospects to date. Selected on merit for their exceptional talent, this dynamic and eclectic group of artists spans recent graduates to seasoned participants in prominent international exhibitions. This 13th edition celebrates a wide range of perspectives, with works that delve into themes of identity, belonging, and our evolving relationship with nature and history, while also pushing the formal boundaries of contemporary media. It is a privilege to bring together such a diverse group, reflecting the richness of today’s art landscape in the Netherlands.”
At Art Rotterdam (28-30 March 2025 at Rotterdam Ahoy), Wouters Gallery from Brussels will showcase the work of Elen Braga in the New Art Section, curated by Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu. Braga’s art captivates viewers with its striking visual appeal, which can often be misleading at first glance: her works may initially appear playful and vibrant, yet a closer look tends to reveals a layered complexity, marked by sharp and critical reflection. In her practice, Braga weaves political themes, power dynamics and personal memories into compelling narratives.
Elen Braga is known for her multidisciplinary and conceptually rich approach, encompassing installation, sculpture, video, textile and performance. Her work delves into themes such as strength, power dynamics, ambition and resilience, blending personal experiences and local narratives with universal themes and current events. Drawing inspiration from mythology, mass culture, folklore, religion and cultural traditions from both Belgium and Brazil, Braga explores how these continue to shape our daily actions and beliefs. At times, she reinterprets historical events as acts of resistance against official narratives. The artist is particularly intrigued by the paradoxes and ambiguities that emerge in her work, always aiming to spark a dialogue.
Braga often draws on her own life and experiences — such as surviving a childhood bus accident — to create intimate connections between the personal and the political, or even the collective. Her work is usually deeply attuned to the context of the locations where it is displayed and is frequently presented in the public space.
The artist works with unconventional materials such as textiles (including hand-tufted tapestries), ceramics, metal, language and even her own body. For Braga, the process of creation is nearly as significant as the outcome: a ritual shaped by dedication, perseverance and self-imposed challenges. Physical exertion plays a vital role in that, as she frequently explores the physical and mental limits of her body and integrates these into her work. A notable example is her monumental tapestry “Elen ou Hubris” (2020), which measured 24 metres in length, weighed 200 kilograms and was displayed for just five hours at the triumphal arch of the Cinquantenaire in Brussels. Conceptually, the piece explored the tension between ambition and overconfidence (hubris), connecting mythological and biblical narratives with personal reflections on pride and discipline. The work took nearly two years to complete.
For an earlier artwork, “Tão quente que era que pouco mais era morte” (“So Hot That a Degree More Would Mean Death”) (2015), Braga travelled to Death Valley in the United States, where she performed with a structure of twelve aluminium plates, inscribed with her interpretations of passages from Dante’s Inferno. This performance underscored her ongoing fascination with the duality of human strength and fragility.
For a recent exhibition at Wouters Gallery, Braga explored the increasingly blurred boundaries between public and private spheres. Translating the concepts of a café and a love hotel into textile installations, she questioned the consumption of love in a digital age.
Elen Braga was born in 1984 in Maranhão, Brazil, into a family of very modest means. Her mother’s work with textiles profoundly influenced her understanding of how craft and identity can intersect in meaningful ways. Raised in a strict religious environment, Braga even gained a degree of recognition as a gospel singer in Brazil. As a child, she also participated in beauty pageants, an intriguing contrast to her religious upbringing, which discouraged overt displays of vanity. Although religion initially provided her with a sense of structure and security, Braga began questioning her beliefs as a teenager. Through art, she found a new way to make sense of the world and express herself. Her first experiments in performance art emerged from a desire to push boundaries — both physical and conceptual. The techniques she developed as a gospel singer later proved invaluable in her performances.
Since 2016, Braga has been based in Belgium. In 2018, she completed a post-master’s degree at a·pass (Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies) in Brussels. She has participated in several residency programmes, including MORPHO, Central Saint Martins and Buitenplaats Brienenoord. Her work was exhibited at institutions such as WIELS, M HKA and Centre Pompidou-Kanal in Brussels and was recently part of a group show at Mu.ZEE in Ostend. Until the end of January, her work will also be on view at CC Strombeek. In 2025, her first monograph will be published by MER Books.
The work of Elen Braga’s will be featured in the New Art Section at Art Rotterdam, presented by Wouters Gallery from Brussels.
Written by Flor Linckens
In conversation with Diego Diez about his gallery, ambitions and presentation at Art Rotterdam
Diez Gallery participates in Art Rotterdam for the second time. The young Amsterdam gallery is making a name for itself with its program and daring presentations at major international fairs. This year, Diez Gallery is part of the Main Section. We spoke with founder Diego Diez about his gallery, his ambitions, and his plans for the upcoming edition of Art Rotterdam.
“We will soon celebrate our third anniversary,” says Diego Diez in the back room of his gallery in Amsterdam West. “I saw opportunities for my gallery because there wasn’t a gallery in Amsterdam with the same ambition or projects that I want to show in my gallery.” In a relatively short time, he managed to build a reputation—not so much in the Netherlands, as Diez mainly programs with artists who are more renowned abroad.
The Spanish Rietveld alumnus has participated in prestigious fairs such as Frieze, Liste, and ARCO. There, he stood out with bold presentations. For example, with Sands Murray-Wassink, he showed a selection of 365 drawings in his booth and captured attention; at Liste with Ian Waelder’s presentation, incorporating an architectural intervention to transform it into a small museum exhibit.
Money or financial gain is not the main focus for Diez, who articulates his plans with great clarity. “The art fairs I do and the steps I take need to serve a purpose. Doing an art fair just for the sake of it is simply a waste of time and energy.” Diez’s goal is to increase the visibility of his gallery and place works in major private or public collections.
A Leap of Faith
Art Rotterdam is scheduled for late March. While Diez had a booth in the New Art Section last year, this time he will participate in the Main Section. Because the previous edition was commercially successful—Diez sold all the works he brought—he is excited to return to Rotterdam and continue to show the different aspects of his program from the main section.
“I am not yet well-known among a larger group of collectors, curators, and corporate collections in The Netherlands. My goal is to show my commitment to this scene, city, and country and to demonstrate that I am truly convinced that Amsterdam is a good place for my gallery. For that, I want to show my vision and the vision of my artists to the local audience. Art Rotterdam is the best place to gain that recognition. That’s why I decided to take a leap of faith and participate in the Main Section this year.”
To make his plan succeed, Diez aims to secure the best work from his best artists for Art Rotterdam. This might seem obvious, but for instance, Ian Waelder has a solo exhibition at Carlier | Gebauer in Berlin just before the fair. Securing new work requires some persuasion on Diez’s part. “I approach my artists and explain the importance of this step for me. I need to show people in the Netherlands that I can bring the best of one of my most important artists. Most of the works I receive will be new works made specifically for the fair.”
Tilde
Diez’s approach to his craft stems from his previous role as the leader of the non-profit art space Tilde, which he ran from 2019 to 2022. For his projects, he showed well-known names such as Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Laure Prouvost, and Moyra Davey. “More is possible when you have a non-profit space instead of a gallery, even with well-known artists, as there are no conflicting commercial interests,” Diez explains. At the same time, it allowed him to build a vast network of artists and curators.
Tilde was housed in Diez’s two-room apartment in Amsterdam. This meant that collaborations were highly personal, with ongoing consultations with artists that, metaphorically speaking, began at breakfast. “All the artists I work with are passionate about art, its creation, and art history. The work I show must have a certain political or social relevance or a connection to art history.”
Diez was inspired to adopt this organic way of working by his friend Marja Bloem, the partner of the late Seth Siegelaub, one of the key figures in early conceptual art. Siegelaub had a gallery in New York in the late 1960s that stood out for its groundbreaking presentation methods. The 2015 retrospective on Siegelaub at the Stedelijk Museum was a revelation for Diez: “He did things with passion. He quickly realized that the contemporary art world wasn’t for him, so he stopped his gallery. His approach felt very natural to me, especially for work that wasn’t in vogue at the time.”
Art Rotterdam
One notable aspect of Tilde’s programming was the combination of contemporary artists with established names, such as pairing the young Nora Turato with Lilly van der Stokker. Diez plans to do something similar at Art Rotterdam. This time, there won’t be an architectural intervention but an elegant interplay of high-quality secondary market works, sourced together with Paul van Esch, and contemporary pieces by Ian Waelder, Jessica Wilson or Rasoul Ashtary. Diez plans to group them around three major themes in art history: history and identity, portraiture, and abstraction.
“Because of the importance of art history for my artists , it’s very good to place them in context. Many people don’t know my artists yet because they don’t exhibit in the Netherlands. That’s why I’m showing them alongside an established name.”
Diez can already reveal a glimpse: for the theme of history, he plans to present a work by Anselm Kiefer, who will have exhibitions at both the Stedelijk Museum and the Van Gogh Museum at that time, alongside works by Ian Waelder.
Written by Wouter van den Eijkel
Rotterdam Art Week takes place at the same time as Art Rotterdam; from 26 to 30 March 2025, Rotterdam will be all about art. At 50 locations throughout the city, you will discover fairs, exhibitions, open studios, tours, artist talks and more. From sensational openings to surprising pop-up shows, art can be seen, experienced and enjoyed everywhere for five days.
For the complete Rotterdam Art Week programming: www.rotterdamartweek.nl/programma
Fons Hof, Director Art Rotterdam
“The first edition at the new location Rotterdam Ahoy will be a special experience for international collectors, art professionals, and art enthusiasts. The fair will feature a grid of galleries interspersed with large curated spaces for video, sculpture, installations and performance. Here galleries can showcase their most daring and outspoken artists. In addition, Prospects, the Mondriaan Fund exhibition for emerging talent, will return in an extra large format. This combination creates a rich, diverse, and inspiring visitor experience, ensuring that Art Rotterdam remains future-proof.”
Edo Dijksterhuis in Dutch newspaper Het Parool, February 1, 2024
The fact that the Prospects exhibition of the Mondriaan Fund could no longer be housed at Art Rotterdam, prompted the entire fair to move to the new venue Rotterdam Ahoy.
A nice side effect of this solidarity action, is that Art Rotterdam can bring back much beloved sections from the past 25 years that were lost due to a lack of space, such as Sculpture Park, Intersections and of course the Projections video section. Something to look forward to.”
Art Rotterdam in Rotterdam Ahoy
Talk hosted by Art Rotterdam – ‘The Influence of Digital Technology on Architecture, Fashion, Art and Design’
Thursday February 1, 17.00 – 18.00 hrs
Location: Reflections Room, on the first floor, next to booth 30
Four experts in the fields of architecture (Aric Chen, director of Nieuwe Instituut), art (Nieck de Bruijn, founding director of Upstream Gallery), fashion (Margreeth Olsthoorn, owner of her eponymous fashion store, curator and stylist), and design (Audrey Jane, interdisciplinary designer using analogue and digital methods) will share their perspectives on this issue in a panel discussion moderated by art historian Manuela Klerkx. Note: This is an English spoken event.
Talk hosted by BK-Information – ‘Marilyn Douala Bell: The Art Practice and the Practice of Public Art in Douala, Cameroon’
Sunday February 4, 11.30 – 12.30 hrs
Location: Reflections Room, on the first floor, next to booth 30
BK-Information hosts the lecture ‘The Art Practice and the Practice of Public Art in Douala, Cameroon’. In an interview with Marilyn Douala Bell, artist Liesbeth Bik will discuss Douala Bell’s role as a commissioner of exhibitions and art in the public space of the city of Douala in Cameroon. Note: This is an English spoken event.
Free guided tours with Young Collector’s Circle
Saturday February 3, 13.00 & 15.00 hrs
Sunday February 4, 13.00 & 15.00 hrs
Registration and staring point : entrance of the fair
Want to join a tour of the fair, led by a passionate art lover from the Young Collectors Circle? The Young Collectors Circle opens up the art world to art lovers with collecting ambitions. Meet other starting collectors, get acquainted with all aspects of collecting and develop your own taste and style.
For further questions, please visit the Info Desk at the entrance of the fair.
After graduating from art schools in Wuhan and London, Sun Chang (1994) attended ‘The Dirty Art Appartment’ course at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam from 2017-2019. Rather than training artists to practise a craft, it invites them to research our everyday social dynamics and the meanings we assign to social roles. Chang therefore describes herself as a ‘community-based and social artist’. In 2020, she initiated to M•Others (2020-present), an exploration of what motherhood means through interviews, discussions and workshops. In doing so, the artist builds a community that anyone can join. At ‘Prospects’ at Art Rotterdam, she gives insight into her process and shows a recent collaborative artwork.
The idea for the to M•Others project (2020-present) emerged during the covid pandemic. Chang shares: “Lockdown made another thing apparent: much of the work around the house is done by women. This is no news, but it made clear that even when everyone is at home, most chores still end up on the plates of women. Gender plays a role in the home. This was the starting point of my project to M•Others, in which I examine M(other)ing: mothering, taking care of another, the home, and oneself. I started examining motherhood as an action, not as a state of being. In the end motherhood, the act of mothering, is a sort of taking care of one another that can be performed by anyone, regardless of gender identity.” The artist thus uses a broad definition of motherhood, as ‘caring for another’, to include fathers, people without children and queers.
Through dinners, letters, pamphlets, interviews, discussions and collective design workshops, Chang explores what motherhood entails. One example is Sisther-Hood (2023), a large canvas designed with mothers from the Bijlmer and cardboard tags written by girls from womxn’s Mill neighbourhood. This textile work acts as a manifesto with the words ‘I am more because we are more’. The ‘I’ and ‘we’ are connected like veins of life. In the spirit of: ‘another’s beauty and strength does not mean the absence of your own.’ This project was organised during International Women’s Day together with Buurtzus. The children and adults reflected on their female role models and women/girl power in others and themselves. In addition, participants created spirit masks, inspired by a hybrid creature from Greek mythology, to represent symbols of domesticity and threats towards women.
At Prospects, the artist shows this 3-metre-long cloth with an ant-shaped anthill, in response to the question of which animal best represents motherhood. According to Chang, the ant is like a cloak that radiates the strength and connection of its creators. In times when we risk losing sight of connection, Chang uses her artistry to connect people of diverse cultural backgrounds and ages. In her words, “In the end, everyone can be a mother, regardless of gender or sex. M(other)ing [ed. mothering] is a verb, an intention.” As such, her art practices contribute to emancipation, resilience and self-awareness.
Sun Chang (1994) is a social artist, independent publisher and educational designer based in Amsterdam. From 2012 to 2019, she pursued art studies in Wuhan, Beijing, New York, London and Amsterdam. Chang is artistic director of to M-Others and co-founder of Lost Dad Publishing. She was granted several residencies, including from Guangdong Times Museum (2022-2023), Witte Rook (2022) and CBK Zuidoost (2021).
Between 2022-2023, Chang received talent support from the Mondriaan Fund. Therefore, she is one of the participating artists of the ‘Prospects’ exhibition at Art Rotterdam.
Written by Pienk de Gaay Fortman
Hanane El Ouardani’s work stands out for her unique ability to interweave intimate and personal narratives and perspectives with broader societal and cultural themes. El Ouardani’s subjective documentary photography projects are not only aesthetically captivating but also prompt questions about identity, exotism, contradictions and social status. She challenges the viewer to contemplate the complexity of these themes. With her camera, she ventures to public spaces where men play a prominent role and she actively engages in interaction there.
The Dutch-Moroccan photographer was born in the Netherlands with bicultural roots, and her practice reflects a recurring duality: on one hand, an unwavering desire to truly feel at home somewhere, and on the other, embracing her status as an ‘outsider’ due to the unique perspective it offers her, allowing her to keenly observe differences from a distance. In 2018, she published the photo book ‘The Skies are Blue, The Walls are Red’, a visual diary that explores the various layers of a diasporic identity. The book raises questions about representing one’s roots without feeling estranged from one’s own culture.
During Art Rotterdam, El Ouardani will showcase her work at Prospects: an initiative of the Mondriaan Fonds that showcases work by 86 artists who received financial support in 2022 to launch their careers. The work on display ranges from photography to textile works, video to paintings and performances to sculptures. The exhibition is curated by Johan Gustavsson in collaboration with curator Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen. El Ouardani will present three works there that she created in Kuwait, an introduction to her ongoing research that is currently taking shape. So far, the photographer has captured migrants working in American fast-food chains in Kuwait, which have proliferated since 1991 in the aftermath of the First Gulf War. In doing so, El Ouardani is exploring how cultural exchange translates into the complexities of overconsumption.
Additionally, she draws inspiration from a set of playing cards developed by the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to help soldiers identify the most wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The cards were considered provocative and trivializing, and at the same time, they represented a bizarre Americanization of the war — a war whose legitimacy, the ‘weapons of mass destruction’, was later found to be unfounded. By 2021, nearly all of the 52 most wanted individuals on the cards had died or been captured, with eleven of them subsequently released.
El Ouardani was born in 1994 and lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied Photography and Design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and her work has been exhibited at notable venues, including the Van Gogh Museum, Unseen Amsterdam, Foto Tallinn and Paris Photo.
During Art Rotterdam, Hanane El Ouardani’s work will be on display in the Prospects section of the Mondriaan Fonds.
Written by Flor Linckens
This edition, Art Rotterdam welcomes several new exhibitors including the Johannesburg based Kalashnikovv Gallery. The gallery is dedicated to providing a platform to both emerging and established South African artists. One of them is the interdisciplinary artist Senzeni Marasela (1977, South Africa) who explores photography, video, prints and mixed-medium installations involving textiles and embroidery. Her work deals with history, memory, and personal narrative, emphasising historical gaps and overlooked figures. Although Marasela exhibits around the globe, it is the first time her work is shown at a Dutch art fair.
In her performance titled Waiting for Gebane (2013-2019), Marasela delves into the life of her alter-ego Theodora (named after her mother) and fictional husband Gebane who abandons her in a village in the Eastern Cape and travels to Johannesburg. The story starts with a modest red dress which she receives as a gift before he leaves. The ornamentally printed Iseshweshwe dress is worn by married women in Xhosa culture and is widely worn by the rural population. Marasela wears the garment daily for six years in a row, a powerful statement woven into the encounters she has. She also performed this project at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.
As the artist explains: “A large part of my work is concerned about covering Theodora. It is the hardships that she had to go through living in Johannesburg and probably also the hardships that women like me now are struggling with now. Because it’s a place with a lot of violence.” As such, Theodora remains not only a fictional character but also a way of giving voice to the traumas of Marasela’s mother and other black women, to this day.
There is literally and figuratively a common thread in her work. The frequent use of the colour red in her embroidered works and watercolours, can be interpreted as a reference to the blood and evil behind colonial practices. Thematically, the artist makes invisible stories of oppressed black women visible. In her most recent series Last Known Location (2023), which the artist presents at Art Rotterdam, she uses topography to string together the story of Theodora in search of Gebane’s footprints.
In earlier work Covering Sarah (2011), consisting of watercolours of red outlines in front of a white background, Sarah Baartman (1789-1815) is the main character. Baartman was a South African Khoikhoi woman who was required to perform in London and Paris in the 19th century. Tragically, she was used by Europeans to exhibit at rich people’s parties and private salons.
That her art has remained relevant and impactful for almost 30 years of artistry is reflected in the recent award Marasela received. In 2023, the artist won the first K21 Global Art Award, an initiative from the Friends of Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen which celebrates the vision and courage of emerging and mid-career artists. She responds: “I hope that this is the beginning of great discussions and cooperations. I also hope that this is a journey that will inspire young artists around the world, especially in Africa.” Determined to address inequality resulting from apartheid, the artist deconstructs practices of colonialism and racism in order to reconstruct a world of equality for generations to come.
Senzeni Marasela (1977, South Africa) graduated from the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg (1998) and shortly thereafter completed a residency at the South African National Gallery. Some of her career highlights include exhibitions at the South African Pavillion during the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Zeitz Mocaa in Cape Town (2020) and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris (2021). Her work is represented in several collections such as Smithsonian Museum (USA), MoMA (USA) and Harry David Collection (GRE). She lives and works in Soweto.
During Art Rotterdam, Senzeni Marasela exhibits her art at Kalashnikovv Gallery from Johannesburg (Solo/Duo, booth 22).
Written by Pienk de Gaay Fortman
