Early this week, Spaceship carinderia hosted the 1st Kamias Jazz Fest. One of the sidelights was a pop-up exhibition called “The Autocartoon Revenge of Reverend Gertjan Zuilhof”, featuring strange drawings by International Festival Rotterdam programmer. The deal: the first 100 guests could choose a work they like and bring it home, for free. We ask Gertjan, an art history graduate of Leiden University, five questions about his art and Manila:
Congratulations on your exhibition! You mentioned that you’re a serial sketcher, that you like drawing on hotel stationery. How many can you finish in a day?
Maybe I can finish a few a day, but mostly I do just one. The idea, the outline goes quite quickly and the making of shadows I do in between my actual work.
What are these images inspired by?
They are not inspired. When I start drawing I mostly do not know how it will end. It comes from somewhere inside.
You’ve been to many places around the world as a festival programmer for Film Festival Rotterdam. What sets Manila apart from the other cities you’ve visited?
The chaos is quite unique. So is the density of this large and not always clean and shining city. I feel quite at home here and admire the survival spirit of most people. It is a thing that has gone lost in my country.
What’s the biggest lie that you’ve been told about Manila?
What’s makes you think that there are lies been told to me? The ghosts in the Manila Film Center are real, right?
What’s your best discovery in Manila?
The Manila Zoo. A very nice, old-fashioned zoo of a kind hard to find in the rest of the world. Please do not modernize it but bring it back to it’s original state.
Photos via Gertjan Zuilhof’s Facebook.
