Ro/Ro
Bremerhaven Stipendium 1992-2010
08.08. – 26.09.2010

Ro/Ro - the abbreviation for “roll-on/roll-off”, normally refers to a handling process in which goods are rolled or driven onto transport ships in the port and then delivered all over the world - hardly necessary to explain in Bremerhaven.
But it is not only goods coming to and going from Bremerhaven that are handled in the port using the ro/ro method. The city has also long been an important stopover for young artists. For almost 20 years, the KUNST & NUTZEN association has been awarding the Bremerhaven Scholarship to renowned national and international artists. The artists awarded the scholarship live and work in the city for a period of six to twelve months and enjoy the excellent working conditions it offers them. They can develop new artistic approaches on a materially secure basis. The spacious studio in Gartenstrasse near the Alte Bürger provides a great space for this.
In the meantime, the scholarship has become a success story for the scholarship holders and for the city. By carefully selecting the scholarship holders, the association has succeeded in bringing artists to Bremerhaven at an early stage who have gone on to achieve national and international recognition and importance with their works. Their works have been exhibited in museums and at art events such as the Dokumenta, the Berlin Biennale and the Venice Biennale and have been recognized with important awards. With the reputation of its scholarship holders, the scholarship contributes to Bremerhaven’s positive reputation beyond the region. In addition, it is not uncommon for the artists’ work to reflect their stay in the seaside city. Here they develop new concepts, adopt new production methods, e.g. from shipbuilding, or find new universal forms for their objects, for example from the container sector or shipping. In this way, Bremerhaven has become an integral part of supra-regional art development. And last but not least, the city also benefits in another way: all scholarship holders present the city with a work of art at the end of their stay. In this way, a considerable art collection of outstanding works has grown up. A selection of these works from the city’s collection can currently be seen in the Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven.
However, not all of the scholarship holders’ high-quality works have been made accessible to the public to date. They are now being shown in an exhibition at the Kunsthalle, for example sculptures by Gereon Krebber, Ceal Floyer’s conceptual works, fine drawings by Dirk Bell or the light and color works by Paul Schwer. All of these works impressively reflect the diversity of the artistic creations of the previous scholarship holders.

Curated by Klaus Becké.