Rotterdam Art Route...

The following day, Bob joined me and Jimmy when we stopped for the Rotterdam Art Route on the way to the Hash. Our first stop was our best, as we had a great conversation with artist Toon Fibbe. He had this shoe made by Sam, the Shoe Doctor, whose shoe shop was opposite the Chicago Board of Trade and Mercantile Exchange. It was a replica of shoes that commodity traders used to wear in order to stand above their competition. 

This sculpture was Toon’s way of asking how high would the traders have gone if a regulation hadn’t been enacted after some traders lost their balance while wearing platform shoes.

The rest of his studio was full of a fascinating exhibit called The Great Mirror of Folly, a life-sized diorama constructed of prints from 1720 depicting the first stock market crash that same year creating a collage in which streams of stock papers penetrate and deform the bodies of traders. 

Unfortunately I can’t remember the details but somehow it tied into today’s global income inequality; hearing Toon explain it all was very interesting. I hope for his sake he finds a way for his exhibit to be displayed in a museum. 

We then visited a few other locations on the Art Route. In this house, we walked across a sculpture of empty beer cans, which surprisingly held our weight...

…and in this school, I took this selfie.

On our way back to the station, we spotted these murals by Ox Alien, my favorite Rotterdam street artist …

…and reflections on the glass wall of the train station.