09 september 2025, Flor Linckens
Art Central Rotterdam XS: discover the start of the cultural season in Rotterdam
On 13 and 14 September, Rotterdam ushers in the cultural season with Art Central Rotterdam XS. Ten galleries in the city centre and the west of the city will open their doors from 13:00 to 17:00 with new exhibitions. Among the participants are five galleries that are represented on GalleryViewer: Contour Gallery, Studio Seine, NL=US, Phoebus and Westerkade Galerie (Westerkadekunst).
Studio Seine opens the season with ‘Silent Earthquake’, a solo exhibition by the Belgian artist Steven Antonio Manes. In his drawings and sculptures, he literally carves emotion into the material, each mark revealing the intensity of an inner conflict. At times his work also evokes the rugged landscapes of southern Italy. Manes works with a wide range of materials, from wall paint and oil pastel to graphite and enamel, creating works that strike a universal chord. His practice is raw and direct, like a diary that captures that what is difficult to put into words. The exhibition runs until 1 November 2025.
In the exhibition ‘Axis Natura’, Contour Gallery connects the work of four artists who explore the landscape through the complex interplay of nature, technology and perception. Sandra Kantanen, Georg Küttinger, Paco Dalmau and Anni Mertens create worlds in which the familiar starts to shift. Their works balance between recognition and estrangement: quiet forests are transformed into mysterious, almost sacred apparitions, and panoramic vistas reveal themselves to be composed of hundreds of fragments. In their practice, the artists move between photography, sculpture and digital image-making. ‘Axis Natura’ will be on view at Contour Gallery until 31 October.
NL=US Gallery presents the duo exhibition ‘The skyline is like skin’, in which Alexandra Roozen and Esther Jiskoot investigate the tension between body and mind, light and darkness, distance and intimacy. In her most recent works, Roozen explores how paper can take on the qualities of skin, occasionally soft and translucent, at other times rough and light-absorbing. Jiskoot shows a series of sculptures with a palpable intimacy, hovering between corporeal form, abstraction and object. Her work points to vulnerability as a form of strength and alludes to strategies of survival, resulting in physical and instinctive experiences. Both artists work from a deeply embodied approach that is profoundly human.
Phoebus Rotterdam currently shows work by the Brazilian artist Célio Braga, who had a solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Den Haag in 2023. For the series "Perfect Friends – Perfect Lovers, he transformed worn and gifted shirts from friends and acquaintances into 42 intimate portraits. Braga carefully cut the fabric into fragments and hand-stitched them onto wooden stretchers, creating compositions of 35 x 30 cm, roughly the scale of a human face. In doing so, he evokes the notion of skin, just as clothing functions as a second skin. The result is a series that renders friendship, intimacy and connection into a tangible form. Braga’s work is on view at Phoebus Rotterdam until 7 October.
At Westerkadekunst, you can see the exhibition ‘Geraakt’, which focuses on the work of Fenneke Hordijk. The title of the exhibit can be translated as either 'Being hit' or 'Touched'. Drawing and paper form the basis of Hordijk's practice, which engages with themes of war, loss and collective trauma. Her personal history, including the deportation of her father during the 1944 razzia and his subsequent forced labour, is interwoven with broader historical narratives and collective memory. The exhibition runs until 28 September at Westerkadekunst.
Atelier Herenplaats also takes part in Art Central Rotterdam XS. Since 1991, this Rotterdam-based centre has offered artists with an intellectual disability or psychiatric background a professional education and studio space. For more than three decades, it has provided a stimulating environment in which artists who fall outside regular art academies have been able to develop their own visual language.
