Art Rotterdam Ahoy
Carola Dertnig, Shahin Afrassiabi, The Last Terminal Radio

27. – 30.03.2025

In March 2025, Art Rotterdam took place at Ahoy in Rotterdam South. Rib was present in various guises.

Rib had its own booth at Intersections, where The Last Terminal Radio was launched and broadcasted together with artists and residents. The radio hosts aired live performances and spoke with visitors of the fair. Radio hosts included Valerio Conti, Ash Kilmartin, Janpier Brands. Listen to the live stream of The Last Terminal Radio on Mixcloud.

At the entrance of Art Rotterdam, Rib presented a video work by Carola Dertnig, revolving door (2001). The work was filmed and performed during Dertnig’s residency at the World Trade Center in 2001. The artist captures herself struggling with luggage in a revolving door, repeatedly getting stuck as bystanders attempt to push her through. In hindsight, the work takes on an eerie premonitory quality. Dertnig: “I realized there weren’t enough doors for people to enter and leave the buildings… Of course, the meaning of this piece changed completely after 9/11.” Her work resonates with the disruption and foresight in The Last Terminal, much as in Albert Lamorisse’s film Les vent amoreux. Lamorisse, haunted by premonitions of his death, died while filming over the Amir Kabir Dam for the Shah of Iran.

The grinning Francis Bacon by Shahin Afrassiabi hanged in the back of Rib's booth, like a mascot. In recent years, Shahin Afrassiabi has been developing a series of paintings based on a 1976 photograph of Bacon taken by Francis Goodman. These works, somewhere between portraits, still lifes, and abstractions, extrapolate elements from the original image. By translating and distorting the photograph, Afrassiabi reflects on the nature of art itself while exploring painting’s potential as a disruptor and carrier of meaning.

Carola Dertnig’s drawings, video works, and installations deal with the performative content of language and the body as mediators of sociocritical, feminist, and political themes. Feminist views and the explicit interest in politicizing gender are central to her work. In her role of the protagonist, she often appears in everyday settings, consciously acting as a disruptive body in order to highlight relevant issues including identity, the self, and its position in society. Carola Dertnig was born in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1963. She studied at the Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna and the École des Beaux Arts Paris. She has been head of the department of performative arts at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna since 2006 and was a guest professor at CAL ARTS, Los Angeles, in 2008. Her book Let’s Twist Again: If You Can’t Think It, Dance It, a study of Vienna’s local performance history, was published in 2006. Dertnig’s work has been included in numerous international exhibitions in New York, Vienna, Paris, and Moscow. In 2004 a solo exhibition of her work was held at the Secession in Vienna.

Shahin Afrassiabi produces works that are rooted in conceptual exploration. Within his practice, he bridges various mediums that intersect in dynamic ways. Utilizing materials such as plaster, paper, oil paint, and photography, Afrassiabi crafts sculptures, paintings, and installations. His creations defy categorization, embracing a fluidity that fosters organic discovery within his body of work. He writes, “I have always tried to remain sensitive and responsive to my environment. Both as a matter of survival, and because I couldn’t see any other way to make art. Each exhibition I have done stands on its own, separate from the next or the one before it, and they have all had a direct relationship with what interested me at the time, be it in my immediate environment, in art, in literature or history. I am the thread that runs through it all.” Afrassiabi holds an MFA from Goldsmiths College.

Art Rotterdam AhoyCarola Dertnig, Shahin Afrassiabi, The Last Terminal Radio

Art Rotterdam Ahoy
Carola Dertnig, Shahin Afrassiabi, The Last Terminal Radio