The Rotterdamse Kunststichting RKS (''Rotterdam Arts Council'') was an independent foundation to promote art and culture in Rotterdam from 1945 to 2005. In 2005 the foundation merged into the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture, an advisory body, while the other tasks were transferred to the Art and Culture department of the municipality of Rotterdam. The foundation funded by the municipality had an advisory role towards the municipality and local art institutions, provided subsidies to institutions and projects, and developed initiatives of its own.Patricia van Ulzen. ''Dromen van een metropool. De creatieve klasse van Rotterdam, 1970-2000.'' 010 Publishers, 2007. Speciaal p. 94 In its sixty years of existence, the foundation contributed to the reconstruction of the city, offered a base for Poetry International and the

International Film Festival Rotterdam The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1972, it has maintained a focus on independent and experimental f ...

, and contributed to Rotterdam becoming the European Capital of Culture in 2001.

History

Foundation

The Rotterdamse Kunststichting was founded in August 1945 to help promote the art climate in the city. The initiative was set in motion by The Hague policy officer Hendrik Jan Reinink (1901–1979), Secretary-General of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences from 1945 to 1955.Leo Samama, Hylke van Lingen. ''Nederlandse muziek in de 20-ste eeuw: voorspel tot een nieuwe dag.'' Amsterdam University Press, 2006. p. 279 Reinink wanted to take the financing of the arts outside of national and local government by establishing a national art institution with departments in all Dutch cities to manage and distribute the art subsidy locally. Partly due to the driving force of Eduard Reeser, such an institution was established in Rotterdam in a short period of time just after the war. In other cities there were similar intentions, which however didn't manage to get off the ground. The Rotterdamse Kunststichting got its first board in 1946, with Willy Hofman as the first director. He was assigned a civil servant as secretary, who was as well responsible for the municipal art policy. The foundation at first took office in the city hall of Rotterdam. They moved their office to the Zoutmanstraat in 1953, due to the prompted desire to take a more independent course.Hugo Bongers (2010).
Kunst en wederopbouw in Rotterdam
'' online op 'digitup.nl.

Early years

Overzicht rechter zijgevel - Rotterdam - 20357640 - RCE

In the early post-war years the foundation played an important role in the rebuilding of a cultural infrastructure of the city. To took control of restored and newly constructed buildings, such as the temporary Rotterdamse Schouwburg in 1948, the Ahoy hall in 1950, the avant-garde film theater 't Venster in 1953, and the De Lantaren theater in 1956. After their completion the buildings itself were transferred to the responsible municipal service,Adriaan van der Staay.
Ludo Pieters, dromer van een niet-bestaand Rotterdam
" op adriaanvanderstaay.nl, 2007. from 1966 the Municipal Art Buildings Department. The Rotterdamse Kunststichting took control of the operations of the various cultural institutions. The Rotterdamse Kunststichting had also started an annual provision of commissions to artists at the municipal level. A start was also made with the International Sculpture Collection , which would culminate in the Sculpture Route Westersingel. However, the years remained poor for Rotterdam, on the one hand, because a lot of cultural activity had left for Amsterdam. On the other hand, plans remained on the shelf due to lack of money, such as the idea of a central arts center suggested by Ludo Pieters, the then chairman of the Rotterdam Art Circle. From 1950 onwards, the tokens of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting became the medals of the Leuve, the Maze, the Rotte and the Merwe. Since his appointment as director, Willy Hofman has been responsible for the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, the Luxor Theater and the municipal artists' studios. More theaters were managed under Hofman, including the Hofpleintheater, Piccolo Theater, De Doelen and the Zuidplein Theater. For programming, he came up with the so-called face philosophy, which meant that each theater had to radiate its own face or character. When Hofman became director of the new Municipal Art Buildings Department (DGK) in 1966, the management of the theater buildings was transferred there.

Poetry International

Adriaan van der Staay was appointed director in 1968. The following year, Van der Staay and Martin Mooij, head of the letter department, took the initiative to Poetry International. During a joint visit to the

Poetry International Festival Poetry International Web is an international webzine and a poetry archive put together by a collective body of editors around the world and centrally edited in Rotterdam. It was originally launched in 2002. The site presents poetry from many coun ...

in London, they gained the necessary inspiration and contacts for a similar initiative in Rotterdam. In the following year, the first Rotterdam Poetry International took place in the small hall of concert hall De Doelen. Twenty-three poets were guests, including the Polish

Zbigniew Herbert Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled ...

, the French

Eugène Guillevic Eugène Guillevic (Carnac, Morbihan, France, August 5, 1907 Carnac – March 19, 1997 Paris) () was a French poet. Professionally, he went by the single name ''Guillevic''. Life He was born in the rocky landscape and marine environment of Br ...

and the Austrian

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry In ...

. Among the guests in later years were

Wole Soyinka Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, ...

Joseph Brodsky Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (; russian: link=no, Иосиф Александрович Бродский ; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), USSR in 1940, ...

and

Tomas Tranströmer Tomas Gösta Tranströmer (; 15 April 1931 – 26 March 2015) was a Swedish poet, psychologist and translator. His poems captured the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer's ...

Lijnbaancentrum

In 1970 the Lijnbaancentrum on the Korte Lijnbaan was opened on the initiative of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting with the support of the Art Foundation. This exhibition space was led by Felix Valk (1927–1999), head of exhibitions at the Art Foundation and the later director of the Museum of Ethnology in Rotterdam.28.01.2016 - 07.02.2016 Rotterdam Cultural Histories 6#: Video in het Lijnbaancentrum
''tentrotterdam.nl,'' 2016 The Lijnbaan Center presented experimental exhibitions on a broad spectrum of art, image and mass culture, where it wanted to appeal to a wide audience. For example,

Robin Page Robin Page (2 November 1932 – 12 May 2015) was a British painter. He was one of the early members of the Fluxus art movement. Biography Page was born in England in 1932. His father, Peter Carter-Page, was a humorist and cartoonist who worked ...

, the first-ever

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

artist, had an exhibition with his colonial humorous art there in early 1975, where he talked people in through a video message on the street.

Arts Lab De Lantaren

In 1970, the Rotterdamse Kunststichting opened an arts lab in the renovated theater Lantaarn with a graphic workshop and its own video studio led by Rommert Boonstra. It also had an exhibition space, organized courses, hosted the first Film International festival, came up with its own Perfo festival, and offered remarkable pop concerts. The Hard Werken collective later emerged from the graphic workshop. In the video studio, video art was produced by artists such as

Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational ...

Joan Jonas Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Nan Hoover Nan Hoover (12 May 1931 – 9 June 2008) was a Dutch/American-expatriate artist who is known for her pioneering work in video art, photography and performance art. She spent almost four decades living and working in the Netherlands.Wim Gijzen and

Jan van Munster Jan Nicolaas van Munster (born 3 July 1939 in Gorinchem) is a Dutch sculptor and installation artist whose work appears in many public places in the Netherlands and Germany.RTV N-H TV documentary and interview with Jan van MunsterJan Van Munster ...

. They received support from a video team from the Kunststichting, including Wink van Kempen. In 1984 the Lijnbaancentrum was closed due to budget cuts.

Film International

The third initiative of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting under Adriaan van der Staay in the 1970s was the Film International festival, which was delegated to

Huub Bals Hubertus Bernardus "Huub" Bals (February 3, 1937 – July 13, 1988) was the first director and creator of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), formerly named Film International. IFFR started small in the Calypso cinema and film theat ...

(1937–1988) to take the lead. Huub Bals wanted to show small, unknown films from all parts of the world at the festival. Personal and artistic films were preferred to commercial films from Hollywood. The first Film International organized in 1972 from the Arts Lab De Lantaren and held in 't Venster and the Calypso cinema. In total, about 31 films were shown, which attracted a total of 5000 visitors. The name of the festival was changed into

(IFFR), and has since been held annually in January.

Rotterdam Center for Visual Arts

After the introduction of the Visual Artists Regulation (Beeldende Kunstenaars Regeling BKR) in 1945, a considerable collection of municipal art property had been collected over the years. In 1974 the Professional Association of Visual Artists (Beroepsvereniging van Beeldende Kunstenaars BBK) in Rotterdam proposed to make this collection available through an art library. With the help of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting, the Rijnmond Artotheek was opened on the Voorhaven in Delfshaven.K unstuitleen Rotterdam, over onze geschiedenis
op ''kunstuitleenrotterdam.nl,'' bezien 22-04-2017. In the 1970s, the municipality started the Visual Arts Office (Bureau Beeldende Kunst), where individual artists could apply for grants. At the end of the 1970s, this service was merged with the Artotheek, and in 1982 moved to a corner building on the Nieuwe Binnenweg. Following the idea of the NRC Handelsblad art critic Dolf Welling (1919-2015) it was named the "Centrum Beeldende Kunst" (Center for Visual Arts), the first in the Netherlands. In addition to an exhibition space and art library, a documentation center was also set up. After 24 years, the location on the Nieuwe Binnenweg moved to the City Triangle in 2016.

Rotterdam Festivals

After 1945, large public events were regularly held in Rotterdam. That started with the Rotterdam Ahoy! exhibition in 1950. Subsequently, the National Energy Manifestation 1955, the Floriade 1960, and the manifestation "Communicatie 70" were organized. In the 1970s, the Rotterdamse Kunststichting had explicitly focused on internationalization and mass culture, which began in the field of poetry and films. In addition, festivals were established in the field of architecture, pop music and performance art. A large-scale manifestation around the 650th anniversary of Rotterdam in 1990 was not a resounding success. It led in 1993 to the establishment of the Rotterdam Festivals knowledge center , which was to coordinate festivals and events. It was laid down in a festival formula that festivals to be organized should contribute to strengthening the identity and profile of the city and to its economic development. In addition, they should encourage collaboration between the Rotterdam art institutions. Rotterdam Festivals was set up as a knowledge center to coordinate festivals and events in Rotterdam.

Exhibitions and publications

Over the years the Rotterdamse Kunststichting participated in numerous art and design publications. They published books on artists and designers such as

Homero Aridjis Homero Aridjis (born April 6, 1940) is a Mexican poet, novelist, environmental activist, journalist and diplomat known for his rich imagination, poetry of lyrical beauty, and ethical independence. Family and early life Aridjis was born in Contepe ...

Toeti Heraty Toeti Heraty (also known as Toeti Heraty Noerhadi-Roosseno; 27 November 1933 – 13 June 2021) was an Indonesian poet. She has been singled out as the "only woman amongst the leading contemporary Indonesian poets". Biography Toeti Heraty wa ...

Ajip Rosidi Ajip Rosidi (31 January 1938 – 29 July 2020) was an Indonesian poet and short story writer. As of 1983 he had published 326 works in 22 different magazines. Biography Rosidi was born on 31 January 1938, in Jatiwangi, Majalengka, West Java. He ...

and

Lotte Stam-Beese Charlotte Ida Anna "Lotte" Stam-Beese (28 January 1903 – 18 November 1988) was a German-Dutch architect, photographer and urban planner who helped with the reconstruction of Rotterdam after World War II. Biography Beese was born in Reisich ...

. In 1990 in cooperation with Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam (CBK) they created the exhibition ''Rotterdam Assorti'' in the former

Holland America Line Holland America Line is an American-owned cruise line, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & plc headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. Holland America Line was founded in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and from 1873 to 1989, it operated ...

head office, now

Hotel New York ''Hotel New York'' is the fourth studio album recorded by the Dutch pop/rock singer Anouk and released on December 3, 2004, in the Netherlands. The album is named for the location where Anouk wrote all its songs: Hotel New York in Rotterdam. Deb ...

. The exhibition was curated by Jan van Adrichem for Boymans,

Ove Lucas Ove Lucas (born ca. 1960) is a Dutch curator and director of the Center for Visual Arts Rotterdam.Editorial. "Ove Lucas directeur CBK Rotterdam," ''Trouw.'' 26 april 2006. Biography Early career Lucas started his career in the Rotterdam art ...

for the CBK, and

Thomas Meyer zu Schlochtern Thomas Meyer zu Schlochtern (born 1946 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch art historian and curator, who came into prominence as director of the Arti et Amicitiae and as curator at Rotterdamse Kunststichting in the 1990s. Biography Education and early ...

for the RKS. In 1993 Thomas Meyer for the RKS curated the exhibition ''Verwantschaften'' in the Rotterdam

Kunsthal The Kunsthal ( en, Art Hall) is an art museum in Rotterdam. It opened in 1992. Overview The museum is situated in the Museumpark of Rotterdam next to the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam, and in the vicinity of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuning ...

. In 1996 the Rotterdam Arts Council offered a shelter for the first European

Manifesta Manifesta, also known as the European Nomadic Biennial, is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale. History Manifesta was founded in 1994 by Dutch art historian Hedwig Fijen. The first edition took place in Rotterdam. One of ...

exhibition in Rotterdam, which had been set to happen in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Rotterdam Design Awards

In 1993 the Rotterdamse Kunststichting initiated the

Rotterdam Design Award The Rotterdam Design Award (Rotterdamse Designprijs) was an annual and later biennial design award in the Netherlands from 1993 to 2013. In the first five editions the work of the nominees were exhibited in the Kunsthal, and afterwards in Museum Bo ...

with

Christine de Baan Christine de Baan (born 10 October 1956) is a Dutch art curator, policy advisor and director, known for numerous contributions in the field Dutch Design. She participated in the organisation of the Prix de Rome, the Rotterdamse Kunststichting where ...

as its founding director. It was presented as the most important prize for Dutch design and designers in the Netherlands. From a few hundred applications about forty designs and designers were nominated, from which a jury choose one winner and about five recommendation. The nominees were exhibited at the

Rotterdam, where at the end of the exhibition the prize was awarded.

Aftermaths

The last director was Robert R. de Haas, previously director of the Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst (RBK). Under his rule, Rotterdam became the European Capital of Culture in 2001. In addition, he has encouraged new developments for dance in the city. Among other things, he established the HipHopHuis in Rotterdam. In 2003 a broad restructuring operation started in the Rotterdam sector of art and culture. A number of municipal activities in that area were privatized. And a new Art and Culture Service and a Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture were initiated.Rotterdamse Raad voor Kunst en Cultuur.
Jaarverslag 2005
'' op rrkc.nl. Bezien 21-04-2017.

Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture

On 7 June 2005, the municipality of Rotterdam established the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture as a new official advisory body. The Rotterdamse Kunststichting was thereby maintained as an independent legal entity and employer for the people of the office of the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture. The management and distribution of arts subsidies, a task that the Rotterdamse Kunststichting had taken care of for 60 years, was transferred to the Art and Culture department of the municipality of Rotterdam.

Organization

Over the years, the directors of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting have each left their mark on the foundation and the course to be sailed. In total there have been the following six directors:Gepke Bouma (2012). * 1945–1966: Willy Hofman * 1968–1978: Adriaan van der Staay * 1979–1982: Hans Keller * 1982–1990: Paul Noorman * 1990–1995: Alle Diderik the Younger * 1995–2005: Robert R. de Haas In the independent foundation, the director was accountable to the board. This board consisted of a broad mix of people from business, politics and the cultural sector. The first chairman of the board of the Rotterdamse Kunststichting in 1945 was Cees van der Leeuw. Later presidents were Ludo Pieters until the 1980s, who previously as chairman of the Rotterdam art circle had been a regular member of the board, and George Brouwer from 1999 to 2012. Another prominent board member was J.C. Ebbinge Wubben, who from 1945 to 1978 was director of

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located ...

. With the start of the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture it held fifteen members under the chairmanship of Micky Teenstra-Verhaar.Gepke Bouma (2012), p. 209.

References

{{Authority control Culture in Rotterdam Dutch design