Gyz La Rivière

In a world where cities are becoming more important than countries, Rotterdam, Liverpool, Marseilles and Naples could form a 'cities gang'. All four are working class, multicultural and internationally oriented, and have been influenced significantly by urban planning and nineteenth-century and modernist urges to demolish. They share a clichéd sense of inferiority and often top 'the wrong charts'. They are currently undergoing an international re-evaluation, including ongoing processes of gentrification. Their shared characteristics could form the basis for a gang of cities capable of taking on the world. Or even showing the world how it could be done.

For many communities, video rental shops hold a dear significance: a place where anyone and everyone could rent a film. As they become a dying species, Rotterdam artist Gyz La Rivière shares the stories of the remaining few in The Netherlands and the Benelux.

Malin is what the Chinese made of Maring – an alias used by Henk Sneevliet. By now, he is probably best known for the Amsterdam metro stop named after him, but who was Sneevliet? Artist Gyz La Rivière is the TV reporter and newsreader who regales his viewers with the tale of the man’s impressive past. Born in Rotterdam, Sneevliet became a passionate communist who left for Russia and China, where he hung out with the likes of Lenin and Mao.