The Great Escape

After the overwhelming artwork in the Markthal, artist Arno Coenen decided to release his images — quite literally — into the city.

The Great Escape was a series of monumental stickers placed on façades and buildings throughout Rotterdam. The enlarged fragments from Coenen’s Horn of Plenty — think flamboyant flowers, colossal fruits, and dreamy seeds — broke free from the Markthal and appeared where you least expected them.

The city thus became an open-air gallery, where Coenen’s digital baroque found a second, temporary life. Not as a project, but as a statement: art doesn’t have to stay within four walls.

The stickers were temporary — but monumental. Rotterdam saw them. And felt them.

Mothership curated and coordinated the project.