Statue of a young black woman immensely popular in Rotterdam. So that’s that, Rosanne Hertzberger – Joop

The new Moments Contained statue for the Central Station in Rotterdam is extremely popular. This is reported by RTV Rijnmond. Since the image of the young black woman was unveiled on Friday, it has been storming with admirers. If you want to have your picture taken with the bronze giantess, you have to stand in line and wait your turn.

Rijnmond sketches the atmosphere around the statue:

When a passer-by calls the statue “very beautiful”, most of the bystanders nod in agreement. The man continues in amazement and seems to understand it: “Bronze is normally very hard, but this statue is cast very softly.” “An asset to the city,” adds another. Two men walking by don’t stop, but remark to each other: “She’s very pretty.”

The statue was created in 2022 by British artist with Caribbean roots Thomas J. Price. The statue in Rotterdam is part of a series of black men and women cast in bronze, called ‘everymen’ and everywomen by the artist himself.

Already at the unveiling last Friday, there was a lot of praise for the image, including from Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, who already predicted that it would become “the most photographed place in Rotterdam”. Another visitor to the statue says to Rijnmond that she likes the fact that she recognizes her own daughter in it.

Not everyone was thrilled after the unveiling. For example, NRC columnist Rosanne Hertzberger once again took on the role of an old white man, a role that suits her well, and criticized the image in the newspaper that she considers a disgrace. According to Hertzberger, the young black (and fictional) woman does not deserve an image. Her column tied seamlessly with a flood of racist slurs on social media at the Moments Contained unveiling.

The fact that Hertzberger had not previously lashed out against the many images of unknown white men or Harry from The Hague, who, like the woman in front of the Rotterdam station, has his hands in his pockets, was met with a lot of criticism. On Joop, journalist Tara Lewis wrote: “With that column, in which the disdain drips from the sentences, Hertzberger proves that the battle is far from over.”

Colleagues of Hertzberger were also of the opinion that she was seriously wrong. So called https://twitter.com/pieterjvanos/status/1665332139863298048?s=48&t=B-IEt1Whd1t1_D9qTLelaw it “a not-so-very old woman performs a curious old-white-man rage over a statue that has NOTHING wrong with it”. https://twitter.com/coenvanzwol/status/1665331867606818818?s=48&t=B-IEt1Whd1t1_D9qTLelaw commented: “Recent statue in front of Leeuwarden station of two people who have ‘achieved nothing’. Didn’t you hear about Rosanne Herzberger. And, well, you know why.”