Your own personal Horn of Plenty

Abstract
With its eye-popping mural Horn of Plenty the new Markthal in Rotterdam offers the ultimate ‘instagrammification’; aside from the products on this covered market, all visitors seem to want to grab a piece of the art by taking a picture. The artwork by Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam is a key factor in the Markthal’s blockbuster success even though it took very little of the construction costs and wasn’t even part of the original plans. This presentation offers an insider’s look at this almost graffiti-like intervention of local artists and pleas for more involvement of visual artists in development planning.

The original designs of the Markthal by MVRDV, as published in the media, prompted Rotterdam art agency Mothership to seek collaboration with the renowned architecture office. Backed up by years of experience with art projects in public space, Mothership offered to improve the design for the characteristic tunnel-shaped ceiling and to produce a mural that offered more than just decoration. One key factor in the winning design of Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam is its illusionary quality realized with high-end 3D computer graphics, a culmination of Coenen and Roskam’s earlier collaborative work in public space.

Biography
Marinus de Ruiter (NL, 1975) M.A. Art History, Arts Management, Humanities (University of Utrecht)
Marinus de Ruiter is an independent art historian, arts critic, publicist, copywriter and editor living in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Clients range from museums, music venues and non-profit art organizations to international companies. He writes for forward-thinking arts magazines such as The Wire (London, UK) and Zone 5300 (Rotterdam, NL). He frequently collaborates with visual artists as editor and advisor on various projects ranging from exhibitions to large scale public artworks. From 2012 he collaborated with visual arts duo Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam on the concept and early design of a digitally produced mural for the Markthal in Rotterdam, Horn of Plenty, which is currently counted among the biggest artworks in the world. Horn of Plenty was produced by Rotterdam art company Mothership and is regarded as a key factor of attraction for MVRDV Architecture Office’s Markthal building, which has been visited by an average of 1 million visitors per month since its opening in October 2014.

www.marinusderuiter.nl