When you consider an arty city break, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Florence probably come to mind. But how about different things? We believe it's time for you to add Rotterdam to the list. Here’s why:
Rotterdam for Art: Why Visit
This port city, known for its modernist architecture following a number of bombing raids in WWII, has become a great short-break place to go for art lovers. Also it takes just 40 minutes to fly there from City Airport, then under Twenty minutes in a cab to your hotel.
But why should you go now? For the superb Uncovering Everyday routine – from Bosch to Bruegel exhibition in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. The exhibition can be found at Museumpark, where there are a cluster of galleries, all very close to each other. It’s heaven for culture vultures.
Rotterdam for Art: The Exhibition
The exhibition does just what the name suggests: until the 16th century most European art had focused on religion, but here for the very first time we've an upswing of real life because the subject – warts an exciting. The 40 prints and 40 paintings on show reveal an enormous amount of brothels, orgies, courting couples, quacks as well as their desperate but gullible patients, randy monks, dancing peasants, brides well beyond their prime, card players, misers, greedy lawyers, money lenders and much more.
It's a social revolution recorded in images – low culture in the lowlands, as one of the curators described it – all drawn and painted in graphic detail with humour and reflection. There is a sense of laughing at instead of with the characters in the paintings, but also which you may meet one while you step outside the gallery – all these people and many of the professions are still around today (avaricious bankers, tax dodgers, lecherous pensioners) and any one of them might feature in the latest issue of Private Eye.
Rotterdam for Art: What’s More
Also in Museumpark is the Kunsthal, now showing Keith Haring: The Political Line, exploring birth, death, war and sexuality with Haring's instantly recognizable bright and bold line paintings. Indeed the very first exhibition outside the US by the artist and activist who said “art is perfect for everybody” was in Rotterdam in 1982; 25 years after his untimely death his art continues to be hugely influential. This show is on until 7 February 2022.
In complete contrast to Bosch and Bruegel and Haring is Horst P Horst Photographer of Style at the Netherlands Fotomuseum, a brief walk or Metro ride away. This exquisite exhibition came here from the V&A, so if you missed it working in london be sure to view it in Rotterdam before it finishes on 10 January 2022. The 250 photographs on show include rarely seen 1930s black and white fashion images from the Vogue archive together with portraits of stars of stage and screen including No”el Coward, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Jessica Tandy, Gary Cooper and film director Luchino Visconti. Artists and photographers captured by Horst P Horst include Salvador Dalí, Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton and model-turned-war photographer Lee Miller.
One particularly memorable room features Horst's colour work, so that as you enter it brilliant colour seems to 'pop' in the frames. These beautiful images begin with his photograph of Russian princess Nadejda Sheerbatow in a red velveteen jacket in 1935, the first of many Vogue cover images.
Rotterdam: The Food
All this museum-hopping will certainly make you hungry, along with a trip to the indoor Markt Hall is a must. It's the only food hall That i have ever visited that sells tulip bulbs (well, this is Holland), in addition to bouquets and orchids. You may have cheeses of each and every kind, prosciutto, organic breads, freshly fried fish, juices, frozen yoghurts vegetable chips, and Indonesian- and Chinese-inspired snacks. All housed within an architecturally stunning building with upstairs cafés where one can sit and watch the gorgeous people pass by.
Just two Metro stops from the food hall at Blaak is Eendrachtsplein, near to the Bilderberg Parkhotel, ideally found in the Museumkwartier, home to the aforementioned Museumpark for that Bosch to Bruegel along with other exhibitions. This Art Deco hotel was built-in 1922, having a tower containing suites with superb views over the city and docks put in the 1950s and the first floor renovated in 2022, passing on a funky, modern feel. Here you will find The Park restaurant (www.thepark.nl), where executive chef Eric van Loo, whose own restaurant has two Michelin stars, oversees the current, seasonal cooking that won The Park last year's Gouden Pollepel (Golden Ladle) Award for Rotterdam. Gleam cigar lounge along with a bar for relaxing post-dinner and contemplating your art-filled short break.
For ideas of what to do in Rotterdam and the rest of the Netherlands, visit www.rotterdam.info and www.holland.com
