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T.P.E.S.(MAIN PAGE)
List of T.P.E.S:
T.P.E.S. 00 (2005) / T.P.E.S. 01 (2005) / T.P.E.S. 02 (2005) / T.P.E.S. 03 (2006) / T.P.E.S. 04 (2008) / T.P.E.S. 05 (2009) / T.P.E.S. 06 (2011) / T.P.E.S. 07 (2012) / T.P.E.S. 08 (2014) / T.P.E.S. 09 (2015) / T.P.E.S. 02 Revisited (2023) /
Embedded Files
TEMPORARY PENETRABLE EXHIBITION SPACE 04
——
2008 / intervention / Schiestraat, Rotterdam (NL)
Point A: invitation through a gallery (Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam),
opened on 9.10.2008
Point B: abandoned sculpture by J.H. Baas
A Manifesto Against Indifference
In the vernacular of Rotterdam, a city that is in the habit of bestowing nicknames on objects and buildings, the abstract ornaments from the 1950s that once adorned the entrance to Centraal Station had always been known as the speculaasjes (gingerbread cookies). The station’s architect, Sybold van Ravesteyn, had asked his assistant what it would cost to commission work from the British sculptor Henry Moore. When communicating with the assistant revealed that it would cost too much, Ravesteyn decided he would have to take on the job himself. This resulted in what were indeed very Moore- esque, open-work reliefs on the station walls. Unfortunately, as often usually happens in cities, particularly in Rotterdam, the reliefs were discarded after several decades when the station was demolished. Both the architecture by Van Ravesteyn, whose work would prove to be among the poorest survivors in the country, and the speculaasjes were considered redundant. Everything had to be newer, bigger, different than it had been. History consigned the project to the dumpster.
But the artist Philippe Van Wolputte had other ideas. In 2008, he was offered a solo exhibition by Galerie Wilfried Lentz, which was then located in another recently remodeled building next to the train station. Van Wolputte discovered the speculaasjes lying on the tracks beside the building site and decided to resurrect them in a new form. He repurposed the sculptures to create shelters for the city’s homeless. This Temporary Penetrable Exhibition Space (T.P.E.S.) was a social artwork, not only because it helped people on the margins of society - whose community shelters at the station and the Pauluskerk were closed down due to urban development - but also because it gave a new life to a historic relic. When Van Wolputte removed these pieces to the city fringes, he did not try to camouflage the degradations of time to which they had been subjected: as with his other editions of T.P.E.S., this iteration is dirty and cracked, a three-dimensional protest from the punk era.
Even knowing this, it is still shocking to look at the photographs that document the T.P.E.S. editions. One becomes an unwilling witness to gritty scenes of decay. These are simply ruined buildings. The black-and-white photography emphasizes the sense of filth, bleakness and despair. One would expect to see boldly lettered warning signs like ‘ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK’ or ‘WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR RISKS’ at the entrances to the buildings that Van Wolputte invites you to view. But he invites you in without any warning. His interventions in the public space are invitations to enter buildings that are anything but welcoming. No offense to the artist, but this can feel like a tall order. These buildings just seem too abandoned, too forgotten.
Why would the artist write ‘ENTRANCE’ in large letters on the walls? There are several reasons. His interventions demand that you look at your surroundings with new eyes and employ new ways of thinking about them. All these buildings have seen their share of sorrow and love: lives have been lived there. These places are a part of history and contribute to the identity of a city. All too frequently, they are discarded out of a lazy notion of efficiency, of profit and loss, with all the risks inherent to such a dogmatic attitude. Cities arise slowly, layer upon layer. If the past is not acknowledged due to cultural blindness, then people are steering rudderless in a sea of contemporary delusion. Caught up in this delusion are the amnesiac developers and city marketers who dictate how we should value our cities.
Van Wolputte’s photographs swim against the current because they refer to earlier times. Even though they were taken recently, the pictures look dated, as though from the 1980s. The black writing on the façades of the buildings could easily be the names of galleries yet has the appearance of illegal, angry graffiti tags. These signifiers are signs of protest, intended to break open the city and reclaim the space that should belong to everyone. Down with walls, fences and private property
In the postwar years in which Van Ravesteyn and his associatesoperated, many of the western world’s cities were undergoing rapid development. But with the advent of skyscrapers and walls came a world that declared that happiness was synonymous with wealth and ownership. Just as Van Wolputte does now, the art world of the time questioned this ideology of expansionism. Artists in various European cities revisited Surrealist plans to explore the city psychogeographically: using a map of Paris to walk through London, rolling dice to decide which route to take while under the influence of drugs. The idea was to eliminate the all-too-familiar and obvious perceptions of a new city. Comfort and luxury were bourgeois and not a serious option, an attitude reflected in Van Wolputte’s disquieting photographs of squats.
While his interventions are relatively temporary, the photographs are more permanent. When you record something you save something. Van Wolputte began his visual plea for preservation in 2005, after which the underlying message of the social debate became more urgent. Firstly, there are the many evictions caused by rising mortgages, which while legal do not feel ethically correct. Secondly, the speculation and rapacious building boom that is occurring in many cities, including Antwerp and Rotterdam, have drastically increased the vacancy rate of commercial properties. Developers are effectively creating ghost towns.
This makes Van Wolputte’s spooky photographs both an indictment and a proposal: look at things differently and find a way to value what already exists. The answer is not through gentrification, a temporary solution to an economic impasse. This is the point he makes by presenting us with photographs that are anything but positive and inviting. Instead, they demand that we shake off our indifference to the public space and become more aware of social injustice. The public space should be public, accessible to everyone.
That is how it used to be. Street names such as Meent (common land) recall the communal nature of areas where everyone had the right to graze sheep or grow vegetables. Van Wolputte’s photographs show us a post-community world where everything is fenced off and appropriated, but his interventions hack the space and ‘de-fence’. They are a plea for more commonality, allowing one to imagine the homeless living in artworks and sheep grazing everywhere.
In Rotterdam, he may have won the argument. The new train station building, which opened in 2014, is once again decorated with the same speculaasjes, and the frieze that runs through the building references the speculaasjes motif. The homeless people won a victory too: that same year, the new Pauluskerk homeless shelter annex opened, a stone’s throw from the station. This version of Van Wolputte’s Temporary Penetrable Exhibition Spaces will no doubt know a greater permanence.
Sandra Smets (2015)
SELECTED WORKS
Indicated Locations (2003) / Manhandle (2004) / Gatekeeper (2004) / Closed View Box (2004) / Interference (2004) / Behind the Screen (2004) / Walk On By (2005) / Gone - Demolished (2005) / Rewiring (2005) / Temporary Penetrable Exhibition Spaces / T.P.E.S. 00 (2005) / T.P.E.S. 01 (2005) / T.P.E.S. 02 (2005) / T.P.E.S. 03 (2006) / T.P.E.S. 04 (2008) / T.P.E.S. 05 (2009) / T.P.E.S. 06 (2011) / T.P.E.S. 07(1/2/3) (2013) / T.P.E.S. 08 (2014) / T.P.E.S. 09 (2015) / Reconstructed Construction (2006) / F.T.P.E.S. (2006) / Avenue de Luminy > D559 (2006) / One Week Visitor (2006) / Stockage - Transmitter (2006) / In-Depth Study (2006) / A 16M Commemoration (2006) / On All Fours (2006) / Motions (2008) / Temporary Habitats (2008) / 5 New Piercings (2008) / 3 Closed Conditions (2008) / Profound Fascination (2008) / Homecoming (2008) / A Collection of Hideouts (2008) / To Get the Idea of It (2009) / Covered Yet Possible (2009) / Getting Over (2010) / We Did It - Disputed Territory (2010) / Inhaling Minerals As-Best As Possible (2010) / Forlorn Hope (2010) / ÆTERNUS (2010) / Give Off - Give Out (2011) / Conserve Until Further Notice (2011) / Glimpse from Below (2012) / Used Since 1880 (2012) / From Up to Down (2012) / Inside, Outside, Downside (2012) / Integrating Myself (2012) / Looking Back While Walking Forward (2013) / Misfits (2014) / 2 Leftovers (2014) / W.M.S.S. (2014) / Fade-Outs (2015) / Behind the Lines (2015) / Manhandle Revisited (2016) / Tear Out – Bash (2016) / Short Time Stay (2016) / Linked Surfaces (2017) / End of the Line (2018) / Tactical Transparency (2018) / Down (2019) / It Takes One to Know One (2019) / Beacon (2019) / 7 Step Plan (2020) / One Thing Leads to Another (2021) / T.P.E.S. 02 Revisited (2023) / Interference Revisited (2024) / Enter Enter (2024) / Childsplay (2025-2026)
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