Art on Display 1949-69Art on Display 1949-69

For the research project Tiny Monuments, which she initiated at Theater Rotterdam in 2018, she put together a team consisting of artists, curators and performers to develop a theatrical exhibition together. On the basis of discussions and exchange of expertise, Tulp commissioned the artists to develop a new work that was 'exhibited live' in the theatrical space.

Somewhere between the black box and the white cube, there turned out to be plenty of room for the audience's intuition. Because the project built up its eclectic whole under the watchful eye of the spectators, they were given the opportunity to make their own connections between the various elements. The project was democratic in its process of creation and execution.

Normally you go to a museum to look at art, but in_ Art on Display 1949-69_ the presentation itself is central, which makes you look at yourself in the midst of your surroundings. The experience is both alienating and moving in its intent. This essay is a stroll through the five reconstructions in Art on Display 1949-69. Each section begins with a brief description of the reconstruction, followed by an exploration of how humans and space coincide in the viewing experience and perception of art.

The design of Art on Display 1949-69 is by jo taillieu architecten, within which five reconstructions of possible exhibition designs from the period 1949-1969 are staged. The starting point is the design by Alison Smithson (GB, 1928-1993) and Peter Smithson (GB, 1923-2003). It is the first reconstruction we step into when we enter the exhibition. The space is irregular in shape and labyrinthine in experience, due to the white walls that send the visitor in a clear direction and give them corners to look at the paintings. This first space is a reinterpretation of the design the Smithsons made for Tate London in 1964. The British duo based the design on the dimensions and proportions of the original exhibition space. Here in Rotterdam the walls are high. The design directs the visitor through the space and steers us to a direct relationship with the artworks and with ourselves as viewer. You are immersed in an experience that has a hint of theatricality because of the lighting attached to the top of the walls, which appears to have been taken directly from the grid of a theatre.

As in the Smithsons' design, Jo Taillieu and his team have based their design on the space available to them: the stunning Gallery 1 at Het Nieuwe Instituut. With its high walls and entrance at the side, the visitor easily makes contact with the outside world through the glass wall, while at the same time staying at a safe distance due to the pond that separates inside and outside. In order to reconstruct something, and therefore make an attempt to show how something was, you have to subject it to a 'transcription', as Taillieu said during one of the salons at the opening of the exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut. To show the essence of then, you have to translate it to now. A reconstruction is an architectural intervention which, in the design, sharpens and enhances the viewing experience. The aim is the same as it was in the original designs: to intensify and democratise the viewing experience. It is an adaptation of the original.

Leaving the first reconstruction, we make acquaintance with Franco Albini (IT, 1905-1977) and Franca Helg (IT, 1920-1989). We approach a more intimate square space where we see for the first time the construction of the walls that connect the different designs: wooden beams, light in colour, in vertical and horizontal lines. One of the walls is covered with a transparent textile that allows light from outside to shine through. We see two slender stands, both gracefully supporting a painting. Against the left wall, a painting is attached to a subtle construction that allows the viewer to pivot the painting.

_Art on Display 1949-69 _places the viewer at the centre. From an observer you slowly turn into a participant, and become more aware of your participation with each space. The whole experience is immersive and detached at the same time. This detachment arises because we are not used to the emphasis being placed on us as viewers rather than on what is being exhibited. We are given space as an audience, but are hesitant to occupy it. We're not used to being invited in like this. The anonymity and the scant attention that a great deal of art usually pays to us feels safe. Here there is no such security and we, as visitors, are invited to register the effect on us of a space designed especially for us. My answer to that is not yet forthcoming, and I may not formulate it until a subsequent place where there is less space and where no questions are asked. Only then do I find the words and express myself; as a visitor, we are invited to enter into a relationship, a connection, and need not keep ourselves to ourselves. We are free to reject, approve, wander and literally move the art.

The element of interior and exterior is strongly present because the construction is visible and plays a part in the feeling of wandering and alienation. This element of the exhibition is magnificent because it is atmospheric and brings a layer of feeling to the cognitive and experimental that predominates. The feeling of an artificial space is strong and impressive and is, as far as I am concerned, the essence of the experience of Art on Display 1949-69.

It is a contradiction of layers and fragments brought together and re-enacted in Taillieu and his team's splendid design. He has brought the reconstructions together like a collage, so that they only just touch each other without giving each other new meaning. For me, his design is the key to this wondrous and at times alienating space. Here, people have the leading role, not art.

When we turn our gaze to the left, the next room is already beckoning. The design by Lina Bo Bardi (IT/BR, 1914-1992) invites us to walk close to the art, which is attached to a series of identical objects made of glass, wood and concrete. The wall is lined with mirrors, allowing the objects to multiply along with the visitor. Each architect in this exhibition is aiming for a degree of democratisation in the perception of art, but in my view, Bo Bardi takes the lead. It is in the DNA of her oeuvre to be activist in her design. For example, in 1984 she designed the Teatro Oficina theatre in São Paulo_._ She gave it the form of a street with balconies, in order to bring the outside world inside and allow interaction between people there and then.

Bo Bardi's glass army stands there like silent pawns on a chessboard: combative through the arrangement and vulnerable through the design of a large glass plate mounted in a smaller piece of concrete. The whole thing is top-heavy and gives the impression it could fall over at any moment, while proving the opposite. It is rock solid and radical. Under Bo Bardi's direction, the uniform objects enter the fray to democratise the art experience.

She has removed the paintings from the walls and placed them in the exhibition as autonomous objects. This gives the viewer the freedom to move between the works and to remain standing in front of them a little longer. Suddenly, and for as long as you want, you have an intimate relationship with the artwork. In the 1996 VPRO documentary Ga naar Bahia had Lina hem gezegd, Van Eyck states: "It's as if you own the work for a while. Like it's yours for a moment." Bo Bardi removes the usual art-historical context and democratises the viewing experience. The arrangement of the individual easels and the transparency of the glass mean that you automatically make new connections between the various works. Without needing any prior knowledge or understanding of context, you _experience _the art and coincide with it.

The most moving part of her design, and perhaps of the entire exhibition, can be seen if you look back halfway through the space. Because the paintings are hanging against glass, you can see the back of the old canvases and frames. Every nail, sticker, restorer's handwriting and logo of the depot or museum is uncovered. It's as if she has put the art in its underwear.

In the next room, Carlo Scarpa shows us two designs derived from the painter's easel, carefully positioned in front of two windows inserted in the wall. Against the right wall, we see a design consisting of three hooks to which a painting is attached. Scarpa's easels are the only loaned items in the exhibition. The ingenious design of the easel was too costly and time-consuming to reconstruct.

The aspect of reconstruction is important in terms of content but also essential in the experience of Art on Display 1949-69. The designs are 'performed' once again, as it were, and what you see is a 're-staging' of those designs. The design of the past is reconstructed in the here and now, which creates a theatrical element in the exhibition. In the theatre, we almost always see a reconstruction of a previously designed situation. This engages our imagination as viewers, and we become aware of the major role we are assigned as spectators.

Whereas the designs of the other architects seem to want to 'desanctify' the originals, Scarpa's space feels the most sacred of all. He does not shy away from elevating the artwork. This effect is reinforced by the pale, soft light that Taillieu lets fall diagonally through the 'window'. It is the quietest place in the exhibition. The outside world is most present here and falls in through the window of the building and then again through the artificial window. The whole thing is artificial but effective in its simplicity. Just a single board has been removed from the structure, but it creates a cross that suggests a window. By means of the window, he brings the outside world inside and seems to want to make contact with it.

The other element we see here from Scarpa are three hooks to hang something on. The gesture is small and simple, but pithy as well. A hook to hang something on and a pedestal to put something on; by placing a work of art on it, it becomes the act of exhibiting. Like a stage and a performer walking across that stage to achieve an act of theatre. Theatre director Peter Brook once boiled it down to that essence in his book The Empty Space.

When we turn round, we see a wooden wall with a relatively small entrance. We are entering one of the two pavilions by Aldo Van Eyck (NL, 1918-1999). The reconstruction in the exhibition has high walls with a low pedestal-like object in the middle on which etchings are lying displayed. Low on the right wall, a painting hangs at knee height. It is a reconstruction of the design he made in 1949 for the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. When we walk past, it we leave the pavilion. We're at the back of Gallery 1. It's darker here than at any other place in the exhibition. On the floor, we see a defined area made of cork chips. The surface serves as a background for the objects on display. It is a design from 1951 for Palais der Beaux-Arts Liège. We then quite naturally enter Van Eyck's second pavilion, which is based on the one he designed in 1966 for the Sonsbeek sculpture exhibition. It is a space with round walls in which sculptures are presented on round objects.

Normally, an exhibition space doesn't seem to need humans so much. But Art on _Display 1949-69 _appears unable to do without and yearns for our involvement. We are enticed to participate and challenged to move in the space.

I visited the exhibition a number of times just before closing time when there was very little public. The designs evoked a sense of alienation then. It was a place where the act of looking is central but there is nobody to perform that act. At those moments, it reminded me strongly of an abandoned film set.

Van Eyck's two quiet pavilions are the most 'set-like' because when you enter the space, the construction is visible from the outside; it feels as if you are going from backstage to front stage.

Once you are inside the pavilions, you experience Van Eyck's generosity. He makes a grand gesture to you as a viewer. He embraces you as it were with his high, rounded walls. He has hung Karel Appel low on the wall and disarmed it because we come close in a crouched position. Aldo van Eyck makes us physically involved by placing the works on the ground, high above our field of vision or low on the ground.

The use of materials contributes to the film-set sense of artificiality. For example, Van Eyck's characteristic concrete blocks have been replaced by wooden beams and boards. But even more importantly, the choice of materials unites the various reconstructions.

What also connects the five designs is the empty space in the middle. This empty space also has the feel of a film set. Surrounded by entrances, the back of the design forces itself on you like a front. This is where you get to wander the most and feel surrounded by the architects for a moment. There you can take a seat in Albini's leather chairs. They creak gently as you sit, encouraging you to lean back and become a little more part of the space. Many people could spend a day here, I think, backstage. Looking at the multitude of main roles, every visitor wandering around has been given that role. And indirectly, you are looking at yourself. You are coinciding with your surroundings.

For me, the exhibition is essentially an experiment, a test site where design proposals are made. As Gert Staal so aptly puts it in his text that accompanies the catalogue: the exhibition is 'a visualisation of an investigation'. From my perspective as a theatre-maker, I would go one step further: it is an experiment that you become part of from the moment you enter Gallery 1. The viewer is displayed and observed. That is what makes the exhibition bold and it asks a great deal from its art audience. As a viewer, can you look at yourself while observing something? Can you be absorbed in the experience of looking and at the same time contemplate that experience? And can you enter into an intimate relationship with an artwork while comprehending the construct of that relationship, the elements that shape and drive it?

As far as I am concerned, the exhibition is endlessly interesting in its attempt, and a grand gesture to the public, but in practice it represents an enormous challenge and a sharp field of tension between participating and observing.

Often during my visits to the exhibition, I would go up to the first floor and stand between the works of an entirely other exhibition in Gallery 2 so that I had a bird's eye view of the reconstructions. Then I would observe the arrangement of the space from above and watch the visitors move around as if they were test subjects. From this perspective, my feeling was reinforced that I was watching a performance that had been staged. The 'performance' was strikingly beautiful because the 'test subjects' followed the course without realising they were being watched. A performance that you often stage in a theatrical context seemed to occur naturally here. What made it moving was that I was looking at people looking at something, the viewer, and that was me, too.

There was a moment during a visit to the exhibition when my mind wandered to I _See a Woman Crying _by Rineke Dijkstra. In this 2009 video work, Dijkstra shows a class of British schoolchildren in uniform looking at Picasso's painting Weeping Woman. The painting itself cannot be seen, but you see the children looking at it and reflecting aloud on what they see. The act of looking is intimate, especially if you include the person's world and therefore the frame of reference from which someone looks at and absorbs something. Without knowing who Picasso is, his work resonates with the schoolchildren.

Through the loving gaze with which Dijkstra records this process, she makes room for the viewer's intuition and perception and encourages us to trust our own gaze and, from that perspective, enter into a relationship with the artwork on display. It is a democratic space to show and experience art. The design of Art on Display 1949-69 embodies that gaze and gives form to the viewer in a space where the art pays attention to her.

Translated from the Dutch by Christine Gardner