Drawings by Jan Rothuizen
The Soft Atlas
Drawings by Jan Rothuizen
The Soft Atlas Amsterdam Bedroom fallen soldier Shopping street Bookstore Blind spot Budget hotel Secret annex Anne Frank Illegal residence Red Light District Graphic design studio
Beirut Ain Mareisse
Cairo Dead rat Edge of city
New york The A train
bedroom fallen soldier
Shopping Street, Amsterdam
Bookstore
Blind spot
Budget Hotel
Secret Annex, anne frank
Illegal residence
Redlight District
Graphic design studio
ain Mareisse, beirut
dead rat, Cairo
Edge of city, Cairo
The A train, New york
Graphic echolocations of societal relevant spaces In conversation with Jan Rothuizen on his soft maps and reports. Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen has developed a very special and entertaining kind of topographical journalism, which allows him to leave the usual platforms of the art circuit behind.
J.R.: The book sells of well in
J.R.: I never thought of this particu-
Amsterdam, but it does surprisingly well in other cities too.
MePri: You have been making
J.R.: The book is not to be used as
this kind of supra-factual or “soft”- cartographies since 2005 in various international megacities, such as Guangzhou, Cairo, Beirut and in your native town Amsterdam. Can you describe, how you developed this idea?
a guide, although you can look up places that you might have visited, like the supermarket you will find in every town in Holland or the Anne Frank House. But there are also places in the Atlas that one rarely visits, like the prison, the room drug addicts use to shoot or smoke dope, the Mayor´s office. The Atlas mainly functions as an armchair travellers guide. It is possible to get some sense of place by reading and looking at the drawings. We are working on an English edition.
lar work as a starting point, although it is a map of the sky filled with voices and melodies. In retrospect I feel the homeless signs I bought from people in the streets of New York come closer to the drawings I do now. On the back of each of these signs, I wrote a little text about where I bought the sign, for how much, and I described the situation in short . What kind of person was it that sold the sign to me, how much did I pay for it and also very important, how did I feel about this? This was written like a small report.
Jan Rothuizen: After I left art school, where I was trained to become a painter, I lived in New York for a few years. It was there - in 1998 - that I found myself making excuses to escape my studio and wander the streets. After a year I came to the conclusion that I was a better artist when walking through a city than when working on paintings in the confinement of my studio. While wandering, I felt my experience of place was a fertile state of being. Although I did not yet make the kind of maps I do now, there was already a lot of interaction with my surroundings. The works I produced resulted in my first book, On a clear day you can see forever. MePri: Your Soft Atlas of Amsterdam
(De zachte Atlas van Amsterdam) is very successful, now in its fifth edition. Is it predominantly bought by locals or also by tourists?
MePri: Do you know of any readers
following your routes?
MePri: To me the unique thing
about your topographical drawings is the idea of a spatial entity of commenting voices, which seems to be far away from the narrative approaches of graphic novels. Your performance Scripted Spaces from 2000, where you transcripted an ethereal landscape shaped by a dense carpet of sound of simultaneously played radio broadcasts, seems to play a key role in the formation of the idea of combining spaces, voices and writing. Am I right in assuming that this project was a kind of starting point?
MePri: Last year you made a series
of drawn topographical reports for the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant. How did you select the sites for these drawings and how did you proceed after the selection process? J.R.: First of all I have to be curi-
ous about a subject or site. I do find most places interesting though. When people say something is not interesting because nothing happens there I get even more interested. Something is always happening everywhere. For my drawings, I look for subjects that say something about today’s society. For example, I wanted to do something about the war in Afghanistan, but not in an exotic or sensational way. I got to know the parents of a soldier who was killed in action, and learned that they left their sons bedroom untouched. In this drawing, I was able to portray
not only the 19-year-old soldier but also his mothers grief, three years after he was killed by a roadside bomb. I prepare like a journalist. I try to read and understand as much as possible about a subject. On location I concentrate on what is there, like noises, smells and atmosphere. I like to compare my way of working with the way bats find their way around in the dark. Through echolocation they know not only where they are but also who and what they are, and therefore it is the ideal form of becoming one with one’s surrounding. MePri: Most of your works - if
not all of them - are centred on the riddle of identity, on the construction of the persona. Accordingly your position as an author seems to be very versatile and variable . You write novels, draw maps, publish in newspapers and exhibit in museums. The advantage is that you reach various types of audiences, the readers of the popular newspapers as well as the more exclusive circle of the art world. On the other hand you seem to be very definite in terms of identity in your request not to be confused with someone who works on commission, like a journalist or an illustrator. Concerning the image you have of yourself, but why would it be important to reveal your identity as an artist e.g. to the readership of De Volkskrant? Do you assume that they will receive your contribution with a different kind of awareness and intensity?
J.R.: I considered it a great benefit
J.R.: At a location I look for clues to
to make work that functions outside the art circuit. Making books and publishing in newspapers is the most favourable platform to show my work. I like the idea that people stumble upon my drawings in their daily routines. Although I do think of myself as a visual artist, exhibiting work in a museum or galleries is less appealing to me these days. I am keen to state that I am an artist because it gives some freedom not only to me but also to the people who read my drawing. If I would present myself as a journalist I would proclaim objectiveness and truth. In my drawings all is subjective, and although I explain and show things as they are, there is no hierarchy of information. There is room for unexplained details that seem of no importance. I also feel that the form of drawing is slightly detached from reality. I can show and say things photography cannot. I am also curious to explore more subjects that are difficult to portray in an ordinary photographic manner.
describe what I feel. Like a novelist I prefer showing to telling. Someone recently recommended the books of Sherlock Holmes to me. I am not a great fan of crime novels, but I do love drama, and it’s everywhere!
MePri: Detective approaches like
criminal investigation, search for clues, crime scene description and so on, seem to be of repeated interest in your work. How would you describe your relationship to murder mystery, this central myth of our time?
- Melton Prior InstituteThe Melton Prior Institute provides the basis for an internationally oriented research on the history of reportage drawing. www.meltonpriorinstitut.org
The Soft Atlas Jan Rothuizen Artist Jan Rothuizen visits cities all over the world. As he walks around he jots down what he sees, thinks and feels. In his most recent books ‘The Soft Atlas of Amsterdam’ and ‘The Soft Atlas of the Netherlands’, Rothuizen sketches his hometown Amsterdam and The Netherlands. He walks around in various neighbourhoods and across famous squares, he walks with the mayor on his way to work. He draws the ikea showroom, a circumcision centre, visits the Red Light District, the Anne Frank House and the deserted bedroom of a young soldier killed in Afghanistan. He also shows places that are closed to the public, such as the safe at the Dutch Central Bank and a deportation centre at Schiphol Airport. ‘The Soft Atlas of Amsterdam’ was published in 2009. So far 10,000 copies have been sold. ‘The Soft Atlas of the Netherlands’ was published in November 2011 ‘Brilliant and moving book. Page after page a portrait emerges - perceptive, with humour - of both the city and the artist. [...] A treat for non-Amsterdammers too.’ de Volkskrant ‘The Soft Atlas of Amsterdam is probably the most original book about the city ever made. It is an intriguing cross between a diary, a travelogue, a novel and a comic.’ Het Nieuwsblad van België De Zachte Atlas van Amsterdam /The Soft Atlas of Amsterdam * 128 pages * format 23 x 32 cm * € 18.50 De Zachte Atlas van Nederland/ The Soft Atlas of the Netherlands * 128 pages * format 23 x 32 cm * € 19.50 Jan Rothuizen www.janrothuizen.nl jan@janrothuizen.nl Nieuw Amsterdam publishers Marije Braat mbraat@nieuwamsterdam.nl