Rossi's Bonnefanten and the Pose

In one of the previous texts you describe the analogy between office design and the Bonnefanten; that Bonnefanten has a corporate look. The day I was given this tour in the depot I took a picture of one drawing that's put up on the first floor, department for classical art.
It is analogue to the style in which the real museum is built. (and many other pictures like this).



Ledoux
Oikema, vue persoective, 1804






Happy colony












Pjotr Mueller
Koningin Beatrixpark, Almere, 1989






Short train of associations: Revolutionsarchitektur (Boullee, Gilly), precursors/ contemporaries of this architecture is the folly, both of which heavily rely and borrow from classical, gothic, oriental (Egyptian) archetypes. Of these three archetypes the classical is most dominantly present. The architecture reminds of ancient platform for philosophical discussion (forgot the Greek word for it) depicted in Raphael's fresco. Or indeed 'corporate': a 19th century industrial magnet's estate.


'Philosophy of Athens' by Raphael is dominated by pose (pure pose) similar to how you perceived the way works in the Bonnefanten museum are staged/presented.
Jo Frenken had a large transparent film (for silkscreen printing) with a reproduction of this fresco lying around in his office. I was playing with the thought of making a film (1:1) of your photograph with the figure+ batik. Note that only a few of these classic paintings can be downloaded for free in high resolution from the internet.

Associated Adjustments

If we want to make a few other partitions of space, using the language of the 'dark room' and changing it slightly to fit this other place of opacity, the office- which anyway the exhbition space resembles because of the Rossi corporate look- here are some other languages to borrow, we could use the metal and make the central form clear, build some metal frames on wheels is still my dream- this could also be a way to surround your video work where you paint the window/mirror out, as a way to highlight a physical engagment with revealing/hiding, transparency/opacity- instead of a plant we take a monitor and show that work, on a table could be the fan blowing the batik fabric, and then some lights on timers?

All by way of suggestion only- just to take the dark room structure and run with it. Has a very good relationship with the transformative (especially archiectural) histoyr of the JVE space too...

Technocratic Openess-Free Agression

Space dividers
Space dividers 2.

Informational displays

After visiting the space at Bonnefanten yesterday I again began to think about your questions of choreography of the space., which is natrually the biggest thing for us at this stage,  but what seems very important in our case is that it is a way of moving both through space AND time. An this combination of space and time is something not at all evident in the current exhibitions, they feel as pure stage, with no sense of building up, no sense of tension or impotence, only PURE pose. I think our interest in pose needs to become more and more Attiude as Form, so that the attitude (the way we have worked though and with both time and space) may become visible. 

Things piling on top of each other, filtering in and getting pushed to the back only to emerge again. Being exposed, over exposed and then asked to disappear or transform.

So perhaps we can use some very simple forms/devices from the technocratic world which speak of these things.

As we have discussed in relation to your project in Enschede, such places have the appearance of openess but have the function of obstruction. So perhaps the relationship you are making in Enschede between the technocratic and Rietveld, (although I'm not sure this is entirely clear to me, but if feels good...) is what we should use here and skip Hoffmann altogether. 

Using the so called 'open space' of 'transparent administration' rather then the 'empty surface of mass made' to make this tension between open/under-exposed- generous/agressive. 

Then to link these relationships between 'open time' (genereous) and 'administrated time' (agressive...???probably not, but maybe obstructive anyway, because there are procedures) I wonder if we should focus on the Rietveld workers cottage as the main site to visit and 'stage ourselves within' rather than the building site in Tilburg/Breda. The workers cottage some also seems to intuitively relate to the subtitle 'No Music' I used for that video and the discussions of the invisible collaborators...

Or would this mean we are getting into 'workers ethic', which I don't want, well not in the usual way it's understood or approached...

So I guess the thing is for us to think through what has been most important and I would think at this stage the relationships between time and space - as a structure of the project, and then what we have put onto/into this structure, which you made very clear in your point about the red plexi glass and the underexposed photos being intensified. 

So the relationships need to be the generous (open) and agressive (under-exposed).

How do we make the space the articulates both with the choreography? Is it too simple then to really focus on the way the works are timed, via some of those obstructive/transparent froms from modern office design, and like the light coming on and then video playing, or for example using shelving as  "time line". The top shelf could be 'most recent' bottom shelf 'oldest', so that it gets this relationship with physical building up too?

Again,

LETS GET PHYSICAL

Odious Trees

air blowing next to the 35 mm slide show of the beautiful shelves.

NO MUSIC beamed on the CLOSED bureau of Koen Brans 

4 Gipsen lights

Rietveld 3