to jump back again - click 
to jump to Text index |
ART - ACTION - ACADEMIA social and technical context of events and collaborations by Tjebbe van Tijen 1966-2006 |
Detailed descriptions |
|||||||||
|
1 |
 what An assemblage of plaster sculptures and plaster casts as found as left overs at the Academia di Belli Arti di Brera in Milano form two sides of a sarcophagus that is raised on four columns covered with plaster casted weeds, on top an unfinished sculpture of a man (also another student’s work) covered with cracked clay and fixed in red jelly like polyester; two hand drawn wooden panels at the side of the sarcophagus give some visual and textual clues on the meaning of this monument. The monument is placed against a backdrop of a huge collage of hundreds of cut-out charcoal nude studies, also by students of the academy (this collage was in the end not shown in the exhibition because the owners of the Galleria San Fedele, as Jezuit priests, thought all this nudeness too confronting for their public). |
Abiura Pax Brera 1966 (picolo monumento per l’Academia di belli Arti di Brera, Milano) Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 5 contributing persons 1 contributing organizations 1 where/when locations who persons Cattaneo, Enrico: photography Cavaliere, Alec: support Passoni, Franco: art critic Sangregorio, Giancarlo: support Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, production organizations ITA Milano, Academia di belli Arti di Brera: supplier of materials, object of criticism where/when locations (1966) ITA Milano, group exhibition: Claudio Martinenghi, Denis Masi, Franco Mazzuchelli, Jeffrey Shaw, Tjebbe van Tijen: Galeria San Fedele |
|
||||||
|
2 |
 what A branching drawing system of abstract organic forms going over any surface made mostly with perishable materials like chalk and wax, starting from holes, wells or other fluid surfaces and continuing its parcours for several hours. It has a set of strict topological rules and can be made by several drawers at the same time. The drawing system can be learned by following a correspondence course and some days of practical training. The drawing appears and disappears at several occasions, in buildings, out on the street, through the pages of a magazine and its longest stretch realized is when it grows from London to Amsterdam and Rotterdam hopping on persons, taxis, in an airplane, over the passengers, up the wall of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the next day disappearing in a smoke projection in Rotterdam (see Corpocinema). why The correspondence course for continuous drawing was a kind of pastiche of the American course called “Famous Artist School” (a Dutch version of this course also existed), combined with all kind of pompous art history texts. The following is a quotation from the “foreword to the second revised edition” of the continuous drawing course: “Before modern art made a complete breakaway from the easily recognizable pictures, right at the very beginning something was developing that did not entirely deny naturalism but nevertheless criticized it in a sense. The form was not represented is a ‘chance’ form but stylized into a type of form. This is an expression of one of the most widespread human desires, the desire to regulate and sum up the outside world by means of a small number of universal systems and formulas. In other words: One wants to reduce the many individual forms to one simplified average form in which one can no longer distinguish the individual peculiarities but only the type, the sort. A desire that has its parallel in nature itself: Nature is not concerned with the existence of the individual but only with the survival of the sort. Every stylization is based upon the recognition of the true essence in many various forms of the same sort and their reduction to a basic geometric pattern. This form is imprinted upon the memory and is an easy basis for all kinds of individual variations. Ornaments, if they have passed through real stages of growth are always essentially derived from a form of nature, a plant, a man, an animal, or an instinct, a movement that perpetually repeats itself. There is not always a logical explanation, one must simply learn to sense things for himself. The ability to absorb impressions transformed into systems and symbols and to instantaneously attach a whole chain of thoughts and emotions to them is a specifically human ability. IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE LINE.” NB the course was going to be published in English, but this failed because a Flemish printer where it should be printed refuse to do it because of pictures of a naked girl (Saar Stolk) covered by continuous drawings. The full English translation does exist and will at some state be put on-line. how  |
Continuous Drawing 1966-1967 Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 22 contributing persons 15 contributing organizations 12 locations who persons Bergen, H.C.J. Struyk van: support Bertschinger, Bernard: supporter Boelen, Olivier: support Boersma, Pieter: photography Dijkhuizen, Guus: publisher Gevers-Deijnoot, Wendela : performer Heijningen, Matthijs van: production Latham, John: supporter Morris, Desmond: supporter Os, Mara van: performer Perry, Clay: photography Pieters, Ludo: commissioner Schook, Ammeke: performer Schook, Florence: performer Sonsbeek, E.H. van: commissionar Stolk, Saar: performer Strijkers, J.M.: support Swart, Herman: support Tellegen, Adinka: performer Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, performer, production Wiedeman, Hans: commissionar Woud, Foke: performer organizations GBR London, Better Books : accommodator GBR London, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) : supporter NLD Amsterdam, Amsterdamse Jeugdraad : supporter NLD Amsterdam, Bureau Jeugdzaken Gemeente Amsterdam : commissionar NLD Amsterdam, Kunstzaken Gemeente Amsterdam : subsidiser NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Centrum: accommodator, supporter NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Projekten : organizer NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam : accommodator NLD Amsterdam, Verening Voor Vreemdelingenverkeeer (VVV): supporter NLD Den Haag, Royal Dutch Airlines KLM : sponsor NLD Eindhoven, Globe Theater : accommodator NLD Rotterdam, Kunstzaken Gemeente Rotterdam : subsidiser NLD Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen : accommodator, organizer NLD Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Kunst Stichting: subsidiser NLD Zeist, Nederlandse Kunst Stichting: supporter where/when locations s (1966) GBR London, Better Books Basement (1966) GBR London, Nottinghill Gate, Kensington Park (1966) NLD Beek en Donk, Kasteelhoeve (1967) GBR London, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) (1967) GBR London, streets steps at Pall Mall next to Institute of Contemporary Arts (1967) NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Centrum (1967) NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1967) NLD Amsterdam, streets inner town and museum quarter (1967) NLD Eindhoven, Globe Theater (1967) NLD Rotterdam, streets inner town (Lijnbaanscentrum, Coolsingel) (1967) NLD Schiphol, Schiphol Airport (1980) NLD Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen |
|
||||||
|
3 |
 what A thousand small ink drawings with organic calligraphic elements, alternately made by the two authors, form the basis of this experiment in visual perception. From the original drawings three variations (mirror, negative and mirror negative) were made using a photo copying process. The resulting four drawing variations,complemented by full white and full black frames, were shot by a movie camera using single frame capture. The sequences that were filmed consisted of very fast alternating series of frames with black, white, positive image, mirror image, and negative image. The projected result is a flashing, twinkling and dancing of images. As the film is projected as a loop there is no beginning and no end, and it is only after a prolonged viewing that the spectator will discover this repetition. Though technically the film was produced as an animation film, the makers had no intent to mimick any form of movement. The film studies human perception of fast sequences of still images (”continuous static graphic projection”) also trying out some theories on ‘subliminal perception’, whereby a spectator is supposed to unconsciously perceive a single frame (lasting 38 milliseconds) or a very brief series of frames, with a specific message, within a movie with a different subject. A composition for six musicians, inspired by the images, has later been added as a sound track. The non-traditional music score had many graphic and image elements to be interpreted by the players. The film has been a part of several happenings and installations, often projected on moving and changing surfaces animated by the public, or through translucent screens, in smoke and on liquid surfaces. why The following long quotation from the Synopsis of the film project explains its intention (text probably written in early 1967): “The film was conceived from the need to explore a graphic idea throughout the infinite possibilities of it forms. To approximate its unending capacity for development, extension, growth, disintegration, contra-statement, dialogue, etc.. And to extend this capacity even furtherthrough a co-exploration by two makers. It is a response to the inadequacy of the drawing as such which contains in its unity of oneness, an implicit relationship to absolute ideas and a determined universe. The continuous series, by its a-Platonic multiplicity and documentation of change and the relativity of one among many, becomes a far more siginificant vehicle of expression than the single work as such. The film as a continuous series of sound and image moments, is an expression of BEGINNING, an approximation of the human condition of eternal change, infinite shades of form and fleeting identities. It seeks to excite the perceptive process for indeterminite form within the total flux.” At the end of this synopsis another concept that lead to the film is explained: “This film partakes of a general program for DISILLUSION. Disillusion as applied to film involves the disolution of its conventional theatric experience as a phantasy window. The spatial and visual character of this film will act to confront the observer with art presence and personal presence as equal immediacys.” how  |
Continuous Film 1966-1967 Jeffrey Shaw (author) Tjebbe van Tijen (author) Willem Breuker (contributing author) 16 contributing persons 13 contributing organizations 6 locations who persons Bergeyk, Gilius van: musician Breuker, Willem: composer, musician Cobbing, Bob: curator Courbois, Pierre: musicien Gorter, Arjen: musicien Hampel, Gunther: musicien Latham, John: supporter Ledoux, Jacques: commiossionar Mills, Barney Platt: technical advice Pieterson, Sjors: musicien Scott, James: support Shaw, Jeffrey: conccept, production Swart, Herman: support Tieghem, Jean Pierre van: curator Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, production Weiland, Frits: sound recording organizations BEL Bruxelles, Cinemathèque de Bruxelles : accommodator GBR London, Better Books : accommodator GBR London, London Filmmakers Coop : publisher GBR London, Maya Fim Productions Ltd.: supporter GBR London, St. Martins School of Art : facilitator NLD Amsterdam, Nederlands Filmmuseum : collector NLD Amsterdam, Prins Bernhard Fonds : subsidiser NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Projekten : organizer NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam : accommodator NLD Den Haag, Ministerie Cultuur Recreatie en Maatschappelijk Werk: subsidiser NLD Eindhoven, Nederlandse Filmmakers Cooperatie: distributor NLD Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen : accommodator, organizer NLD Utrecht, Studio voor Elektronische Muziek : facilitator sound recording where/when locations (1966) GBR London, Better Books Basement (1966) NLD Beek en Donk, Kasteelhoeve (1967) BEL Knokke Le Zoute, International Experimental Film Festival: Casino (1980) NLD Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen (1983) NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1983) NLD Utrecht, Festival Film en Kunst: Filmhuis 't Hoogt |
|
||||||
|
4 |
 what Design for theatrical performances making use of inflatable and hydraulic elements combined with film and slide projection, all kind of whistles and body drawings extending to the stage and the public. Only a few elements have been used in happenings in London and The Hague, most of these designs for theater performances have not been realized. Some were meant to be performed in the Sigma Center in Amsterdam, whose director of that time Olivier Boelen had invited me to come to Amsterdam (as I was staying in London at that time). There were some contacts with the ballet group of Koert Stuyf, but the project did not materialize after all. why The following leaflet text from october 1966 gives some insight in the ideas of that time: DESIGNFOR A PNEUMATIC THEATRE all surfaces are common property signs and forms break out of their cadres ideas become form directly continious changing continious growing the unfinished with its dynamics of unrealised possibilities a maximal form with minimal resources an air-circus, a toy with an undefined function a mentality instead of wonderworks of ingenuity , the desillusion of reality the realisation of a dream, the unrealised possibilities the human desire to achieve the impossible the touch , the tactile sense , the discovery of a next dimension outside the own skin plastic will be largely the material used inrealisation: not because it is supposed to be a ‘material of our time’, but because it is the most unpersonal material in form and possibilities it is a general conscieness that emerges in form tjebbe van tijen October ‘66 NB the spellings mistakes in the original have been kept; continious = continuous; desillusion = disillusion (desillusie in Dutch) |
Pneumatic Theatre 1966-1967 Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 4 contributing persons 3 contributing organizations 2 locations who persons Boelen, Olivier: support Cobbing, Bob: support Heijningen, Matthijs van: support Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept organizations GBR London, Better Books : accommodator NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Centrum: supporter NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Projekten : organizer where/when locations (1966) GBR London, Better Books Basement (1967) NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Centrum |
|
||||||
|
5 |
 what A three-dimensional mock-up of one of the paintings of the French surealist Clovis Trouille forms a projection screen that slopes from white lady buttocks into a screen bordered by black curtains. The floor of the space is made of voluptuous undulating foam rubber on which the spectators can lay down and enjoy a series of slide projections of the erotic paintings of Clovis Trouille. |
Hommage à Clovis Trouille 1966-1967 Jeffrey Shaw (author) Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 4 contributing persons 2 contributing organizations 3 locations who persons Botschuyver, Theo: production Nijland, Nico: production Shaw, Jeffrey: concept, production Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, production organizations NLD London, Kingly Street 26 Keith Albarn & Partners : accommodator NLD Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen : accommodator, organizer where/when locations (1966) NLD Beek en Donk, Kasteelhoeve (1967) GBR London, Keith Albarn & Partners: Kingly Street 26 (1980) NLD Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen |
|
||||||
|
6 |
 what An evening with a series of happenings in the municipal museum of modern art in The Hague, or in the words of the participating ‘Ontbijt op bed’ (breakfeast in bed) group from Maastricht a confrontation with: “non-object art”. The part of Tjebbe van Tijen had the following suprises: jazz musicians playing and parading in an inflatbale costume for heads; the continuous drawing growing over floors, walls, musicians and a naked lady; threeD drawing with spray can foam; and nuts (nuts is ‘noten’ in Dutch, also meaning musical notes) being thrown around by musicians and taken away by vacuum cleaning. Descritpion of other events at this can be found in Museum Journaal article (see column at your right hand). |
Situaties Haags Gemeentemuseum 1967 Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 7 contributing persons 1 contributing organizations 1 locations who persons Boersma, Pieter: photography Courbois, Pierre: musician Gorter, Arjen: musician Hampel, Gunther: musician Panhuysen, Paul: curator Stolk, Saar: performer Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, performer organizations NLD Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum: accommodator where/when locations (1967) NLD Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum |
|
||||||
|
7 |
 what A ‘collective head costume’ consisting of a big inflated black amoebic bag, where six persons can stick their head in, is worn by the organizers of the yearly student film festival Cinestud when they attend the new year reception of the maior of Amsterdam in the local museum of modern art. The name of the festival is written in white letters all over the head costume. At the closing evening of the festival films are projected on a screen that is made of paper boxes filled with rolls of plastic tubal foil that starts to inflate during the projection, bursting through the paper into the audience. Also over the heads of the audience such boxes are hanging filled with white weather balloons. The audience grabs and jumps enthusiastically at the inflatables and becomes part of the expanded cinema event. |
Happening Cinestud Film Festival 1967 Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 6 contributing persons 2 contributing organizations 2 locations who persons Berkvens, : commissionar Boersma, Pieter: photography Leursdijk, : commissionar Mijksenaar, Paul: production Pape, : commissionar Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, production organizations NLD Amsterdam, Cinestud Filmfestival : commissionar NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Projekten : organizer where/when locations (1967) NLD Amsterdam, Cinestud Festival: Hallen Theater, Jan van Galenstraat (1967) NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam |
|||||||
|
8 |
 what A show with installations, environments and a series of events in an experimental art space in one of the ‘hip’ streets of West End London in the mid sixties. The environments for heads by Tjebbe van Tijen was a fixed construction in the gallery where the spectator could enter only with the head. The space thus entered was black and full of tubing filled with air and floating liquids, a very slowly expanding water basin with seeds growing in wet cotton, and a bunch of beeping and tootling child toy whistles fixed to the air outlet, the sound of dripping water could be heard as well. There were headphones for each visitor with different sound tracks (some with nice music, others with insulting language) so the facial expression of the spectators might differ. The loss of body proportions by just seeing heads added the estranging effect. Jeffrey Shaw had as one of his installations a projection screen made out of surgeon’s gloves, that could be inflated - by a user - in diffrent ways though a simple air foot pump (see Event Appendix for details).. how |
Breathing, Airmatter, Soundform 1967 (heads environment) Jeffrey Shaw (author) Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 3 contributing persons 1 contributing organizations 1 locations who persons Alborn, Keith: commisionar Shaw, Jeffrey: concept, production Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, production organizations GBR London, Kingly Street 26 Keith Albarn & Partners : accommodator, commissionar where/when locations (1967) GBR London, Keith Albarn & Partners: Kingly Street 26 |
|
||||||
|
9 |
 what A big size inflatable transparent dome as a living screen for movie projection, displayed as a free for all show, at public squares in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Different substances and techniques were used to create dynamic projection surfaces, with smoke, white inflatable tubing, foam, paint, jelly, powder and water sprays. Projections on the dome were combined with lighting effects from the inside of the dome and the use of pyrotechnic devices that reflected on the outside of the dome. Projections were done from three sides with high capacity film projectors. A mix of movies was shown: promotional films for products like washing powder; documentary films about racing cars, moon expeditions and American airforce activities; comics and other children films; and experimental films like the racing colorful stripes of Mc Laren and the stroboscopic flashings of the Continuous Movie. There were also day events whereby the acoustic properties of the dome were tried out by The New Electric Chamber Music Ensemble, combined with paint and foam sprayings on the outside of the dome (using an elevator truck to access the upper parts). why Quotation from Sigma Projects leaflet( August or September 1967): “CORPOCINEMA Theo Botshuiver, Jeffrey Shaw Corpocinema is a semi-spherical pneumatic structure designed to materialize projected images through space in conjunction with a program of corporeal event phenomena within. This signifies a reconstitution of conceptual situations (film) in real time (event structure).” Quatation from a draft text, probably for a press release September 1967: “The program was in Amsterdam was realised with the collaboration of Sean Wellesley Miller.” Follows an end note: “In effect this project indicates an extensive area of event/film (corpocinematic) reserach which is now being undertaken by Th. Botschuijver and J. Shaw. The inflatable device made for Sigma-projects is the first public manifestation of the initial results of this reserach program.” NB spelling as in original. how  |
Corpocinema 1967 Theo Botschuyver (author) Jeffrey Shaw (author) Tjebbe van Tijen (contributing author) Sean Wellesy- Miller (contributing author) 16 contributing persons 10 contributing organizations 2 locations who persons Bergen, H.C.J. Struyk van: support Botschuyver, Theo: concept, object design Cate, Ritsaert ten: support Heijningen, Matthijs van: production Keevel, Chris: electrician Miller, Sean Wellesy-: concept, performer, production Pieters, Ludo: commissioner Poel, Klaas: production Prüst, Toon: musician Scha, Remko: performer Shaw, Jeffrey: concept, performer, production Sonsbeek, E.H. van: commissionar Strijkers, J.M.: support Swart, Herman: support Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, production Wiedeman, Hans: commissionar organizations NLD 's Herenberg, GENAP: contractor inlfatable structure NLD Amsterdam NLD Amsterdam, Amsterdamse Jeugdraad : supporter NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Centrum: supporter NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Projekten : organizer NLD Eindhoven, : music group NLD Loenersloot, Mickery Theater: supporter NLD Rotterdam, Kunstzaken Gemeente Rotterdam : subsidiser NLD Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Kunst Stichting: subsidiser NLD Zeist, Nederlandse Kunst Stichting: supporter where/when locations (1967) NLD Amsterdam, Museumplein (1967) NLD Rotterdam, Schouwburgplein |
|
||||||
|
10 |
 What & Why “GETTING WET WATCHING HOW OTHERS GET WET WITHOUT GETTING WET YOURSELF MAKING YOURSELF DIRTY WATCHING HOW OTHERS GET DIRTY WITHOUT GETTING DIRTY YOURSELF WASHING OFF THE DIRT PLAYING AND WATCHING HOW OTHERS PLAY WITHOUT PLAYING YOURSELF” This is in short the envisaged program as proposed to the Amsterdam Holiday Committee that had asked Sigma Projects to make a proposal for playful events in one of the big suburban parks during the summer holiday (het Amsterdamse Bos). The idea was to combine water, mud and air (inflatables). several people involved in earlier experiments took part in the design. Budget limitations made that this event did not materialize. This design pointed clearly to a possible recreational use of some of the elements that had been developed more or less in an art context. In the next years several of these ideas materialized in the activities undertaken by the Event Structure Research group (ERG). Most of the participating people were active in the Netherlands with the exception of Graham Stevens who had done several recreational art events in London. One of my favorite proposals for this ‘Waterspelen’ was a big mud bath at the edge of a pond that was covered by a big transparent inflatable structure that covered both the mud bath and the adjacent part of the pond. The kids could only enter the mud bath by diving in the water and underneath the floating part of the inflatable cover. In this way they would always enter and exit clean and washed. There were also a series of spectacles planned like the project for “Six activating sand mountains” of Jeffrey Shaw, with 5 meter high sand pyramids that would be activated by pyrotechnics and inflatables. Safe inflatable costumes were designed by Nico Nijland that would let one float as a toad in the water. Big pneumatic tube elements with simple connectors could be played with and combined in all kind of temporal structures. |
Waterspelen 1967 (water plays) project proposal collective work 7 contributing persons 2 contributing organizations who persons Bergen, H.C.J. Struyk van: support Botschuyver, Theo: concept, object design Nijland, Nico: object design Shaw, Jeffrey: concept Stevens, Graham: concept, object design Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept Wiedeman, Hans: commissionar organizations NLD Amsterdam NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Projekten : organizer |
|
||||||
|
11 |
 What & Why An initiative for a documentation and coordination center on art, science, technology and society. It started with two reports that gave an overview of the state of affairs on these subjects in 1967. One report was about the necessary betterment of contact between two social categories , artists, designers and cultural animators on the one hand and engineers, technicians and scientists on the other. A need is noticed for experimental projects outside the traditional cultural cadres of museum, concert hall and theater, based on new forms of collaboration between these two categories. Such experiments that would go beyond the traditional art forms would be needed for making the urban environment more livable and develop new forms of recreation. Such new forms of collaboration between art technology and science should also be implemented in the educational system. Suggestions are made for educational programs for artist/engineers and changes in the passive attitude of art history and social cultural work education. Examples of such new forms of collaboration are given in an appendix: Experiments in Art and technology (EAT), USA; Artist Placement Group (APG), UK; Center for Advanced Study of Science in Art, London; Fylkingen, Stockholm; Utopie group, Paris; Archigramme, London; Organization for Environment Art Research, Japan; Dvijenie Group, USSR; Event Structure Research Group (ERG), London/Amsterdam. Examples of new educational activities are mentioned: The Advanced Studies Group at Hornsey College of Art, England; courses by EAT, New York; Kritiese Universiteit/critical university, Amsterdam; The Antiuniversity of London; guest lecture of artist Christo at Minneapolis School of Art, USA. The other report notes a discrepancy between economic and cultural development and a one-sided growth of science and technology with art lacking behind: “We are living with a culture that does not relate at all to the technical and scientific achievements of our time”. This shortcoming can be overcome by better information through active methods of documentation. A comparison is made between information and documentation in the fields of art and of science and technology. The conclusion is that information and documentation in the field of art is still traditionally oriented: “... the emphasis is on the transfer of established values, failing to notice cultural innovation and movements”. It is proposed to start with documenting the fringe areas of culture, science, technology with an emphasis on innovation. Special consideration is given to the collection of the products of small, alternative and independent publishers. Documentation ‘pools’ and other forms of networking between existing institutions, possibly with the use of computers are suggested. The first stage of this project was done from offices in the Sigma Center, Amsterdam. Later the museum of modern art (Stedelijk Museum) housed the project for over a year. There were some ideas that the project could become a new function of the library of the Stedelijk Museum, but the head of this department was a very traditional man, which frustrated the working situation and kept this idea from being realized. It is interesting to note that at time one of the librarian attendants was Wiesje Smals, later the founder of De Appel. In 1968 and 1969 a series of conferences on this subject was organized in the Amsterdam Museum Fodor (at that time an annex of the Stedelijk Museum). Accordingly they were called “De Fodor Coneferenties”. Several of the subjects touched by the research project for a new center were discussed here, sadly without any direct practical resul. The minutes of these meetings have been kept and make good reading on the state of mind of the Dutch art and design sscene of that moment. |
Research Center Art Technology and Society 1967-1969 Robert Hartzema (author) Tjebbe van Tijen (author) 10 contributing persons 6 contributing organizations 2 locations who persons Beem, Arie: support Beeren, Wim: support Dieleman, Edmond: research Hartzema, Robert: concept, research Henegouwen, G.K. van Beijeren Bergen en: support Kaan, A.: support Latham (Steveni), Barbara: inspirator Riemsdijk, Jan van: support Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, research Wilde, Eddy de: support organizations GBR London, Artist Placement Group (APG): collaborating organization NLD Amersfoort, Documentatie en Informatie centrale (DIC): supporter NLD Amsterdam, Sigma Centrum: supporter NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam : accommodator, supporter NLD Amsterdam, Stichting Vrije Gemeente: employer NLD Den Haag, Raad voor de Kunst: supporter where/when locations (1967-1968) NLD , Inquiry by mail to three hundred persons and organizations: in the Netherlands (1967-1968) NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam |
|
||||||
|
12 |
 what ICOGRADA is an international association of graphic design organizations, since the beginning of the sixties it organizes regular conferences all over the world. In 1968 the Dutch town Eindhoven was chosen as a venue during the month of August. Eindhoven is also the town where the first Dutch Academy for Industrial Design was founded. Since end 1967 in all kind of places in the Western world critical movements had started in many social fields. These movements either came from the cultural field or reflected on it. The congress in Eindhoven had been discussed with some friends who were at that moment involved in debating their study at the local Academy of Industrial Design. There was anger at this established gathering and the high entry fees that made it difficult to go in and open a discussion. So the idea came to take part in an indirect way by making an English language publication that would have texts aimed at the participants of the conference. The local cultural underground paper ‘De Andere Krant’ (the other paper) helped out and during 5 days the house of the publisher was invaded and we selected texts, hammered out texts on the typewriters that had been assembled, scissored and glued the quotations; the bigger letter type was made by enlarging the typed letters in a dark room. The offset printer produced a paper in a jiffy, ready to be handed out at the congress gates. On each page in big type there was the slogan: “awakening and becoming aware”. Most of the texts were in English, but also some in Dutch, French and German. Some of the material quoted was the following: Archigramme statement, 1966; Manifesto of Russian Kineticist, 1967; Utopie group, France 967; Event Structure Research Group, 1968; statement on industrial design by Ronal Bekcman, 1968; critical texts on the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm; texts from the student movement at Hornsey College of Art, 1968; a quote from ‘Wasteland culture’ by George Benello, 1968; a text about avant-garde art by Constant, 1964; a quote from ‘Growing up absurd’ by Paul Goodman, 1956; propositions for a cultural revolution by the French group Le Carré Bleu, 1968; Max Bill on commerce and art; a whole series of critical quotations taken from the reports of earlier ICOGRADA congresses. In the end there are some texts from the occupation of the international design fair in Italy, the ‘Triennale’: “A group of artists, architects and students have closed, for an indeterminate period of time, another of the bulwarks of the bourgeoise culture that still conserves, among other things, its old fascist constitution...” follows a whole expose on imperialist and capitalist exploitation in the West and Third World and calls for a “demystifying of the consumeristic utilization of cultural products.” The last text is the manifesto that discusses the upcoming world fair in Osaka Japan 1970. A curious discovery was when I asked photographer Pieter Boersma if he had some pictures of this ICOGRADA congress and he came up with a series of photographs of a part event organized for the ICOGRADA participants in and around a small castle near Eindhoven in Vught. This event was done by Theo Botschuijver and Jeffrey Shaw with all kind of plastic foils and inflatables, something I had not been aware of at that time. So there was some apparent form of ideological devision. why The colophon of the ICOGRADA special explains some of the why: “This discussion-paper expresses our attitude towards this kind of congresses. The composers This publication has been made on a budget of Hfl.300,-, issued by Muskuspress Eindhoven; circulation 1000; made by daan bouhuijs/design student, ellen boesten/no proferssion, iniek klarenbeek/designer, kees neeteson/copywriter, paul de nooijer/photographer, tejjeb van tijen/cultural-coordinator, gerrit wolfswinkel/design student, and van beers/housewife, ine sinke/secreatry; within a period of 5 days; compare the total amount of the registration fees for the congress (Hfl. 1900,-) we had to pay in case we wanted to participate in teh discussions with the budget this publication has been made on.” how  |
Discussion paper for ICOGRADA Congress 1968 collective undertaking 9 contributing persons 1 contributing organizations 1 locations who persons Beers, Ank van: production Boesten, Ellen: editorial production Bouhuijs, Daan: editorial production Klarenbeek, Iniek: graphic design Neeteson, Kees: editorial production Nooijer, Paul de: photography Sinke, Ine: production Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, editorial production Wolfswinkel, Gerrit: editorial production organizations NLD Eindhoven, De Andere Krant Eindhoven (DAK): publisher where/when locations (1968) NLD Eindhoven, ICOGRADA congress: |
|
||||||
|
13 |
 what The first exhibition on the French May June 1968 movement took place in the Museum Fodor in Amsterdam, an annex of the museum of modern art (Stedelijk Museum). At that time such a thing could not take place in France were people could still be persecuted for certain deeds during the rising and even having lots of protest documentation could make one a suspect. Through a collaboration between the Stedelijk Museum and the International Institute of Social History (IISG), both based in Amsterdam, this exhibition could take place. The IISG had been collecting historical documents from and about revolutionary, workers and social movement since 1935 (a Dutch initiative as a reaction on the take over of power by the Nazis in Germany and Austria and the endangered socialist archives). Also this time the IISG saw it as its task to actively collect materials of the French May movement on the spot. The Institute had already some collecting ’consultants’ in France and several staff members from Amsterdam went to France to add with this task. There were also many people related in some way to the Institute who did the same thing on their own initiative. From July onward with the movement going down several people in France feared strong repression and were looking for a safe place to store documentation they had gathered and donated it to the IISG. All this came together and already in the summer of 1968 a big collection of all kind of documents had been established in Amsterdam. The most primary documents were the leaflets and handouts of thousands of different initiatives, often duplicated, or printed in a simple way. Next came the posters and handwritten manifestos of all kind of sizes and with a great variety of subjects. Though nowadays the strong graphic language of the silkscreened posters produced at ‘atelier de beaux arts’ in Paris are mostly remembered, these were certainly not the first ones, and in fact the text based mostly handwritten wall papers and manifestos with all kind of declarations and calls are much more typical for the May 68 movement. New newspapers, magazines, journals, and dispatches of all kind were brought forth by this movement, some with strong graphics like the paper ‘Action’. Comments, proposals, manifestos, programs and the like in the form of brochures (pamphlets) flooded the bookshops and news stalls, were handed out, or sold on the streets. Photographers, filmmakers and radio journalists made all kind of independent registrations, like an association of independent filmmakers that undertook newsreel productions, taking the name ‘Etats Géneraux du Cinéma”. Of course the movement also reflected on existing news media that often published special editions or issues. Already during the first month books started to come out, documenting specific events, discussing or reflecting. All this material had to be ordered in some way to show it and make it understandable. The head of the French department of the IISG, Tristan Haan, who before that time had been sunk deep into the 18th century and the radical writings of ”le curé Meslier”, woke up to the present and made 244 short descriptions and commentaries of such time documents, adding an overview of 153 groups and their obscure acronyms and abbreviations, many of which only existed for a few weeks. This formed the basis for the catalogue that showed also 135 leaflets, handwritten manifestos and posters, all translated into Dutch. The catalogue was a low budget production, so only pure black and white reproduction could be afforded at that time (even making rasters pictures would have been too expensive; difficult to understand for new generation working with graphic computer systems). Still when I leaf through the catalogue now in 2005 it breathes a graphic atmosphere that relates well with the spirit of the 68 movement. There were film showings with life translations during the exhibition. The catalogue had special sections on movies and gramophone record documents and an international documentation of the 68 movement in the world of art. Maybe here should also be noted that the Stedelijk Museum direction was not all that happy about this initiative. They somewhat feared its revolutionary impact, so when we proposed to hang the reprints of some May 68 posters, like the one with the clubbing CRS riot policeman, on the official advertisement boards of the museum had, this was refused. It took a decade or so before all the simple handwritten and badly duplicated documents were forgotten and only the nice and artistic looking documents could get popular with the curators and were often selected in museum exhibitions as emblems of Mai 68. After 25 years the French archival institutions had catched up and even did better than us foreign pioneering documentarists. The National Library of France undertook a serious project to catalogue all the leaflets they had been able to put their hands on and even initiated a microfilmed edition that has preserved all together 10.067 handouts/leaflets of the May/June 1968 movement. why “Mai 68” has become the shortest way to denote a whole complex of social movements in the spring of 1968 in France and elsewhere, with May as the hot spot and June as a month of cool down. Ten years before general De Gaulle had been elected president and founded what is called the “Ve Republique” with new strong presidential powers. A technocrat policy was pursued, by a center-right majority government, to modernize France, an imperial power that had just lost its colonies and still was a half agricultural, half industrial country. While major efforts were made to push a new high tech industry that would provide both cheap energy and military nuclear power, changes in other domains lacked behind. Former agricultural workers and small farmers had been driven from the fields into the new factories, soon demanding better working conditions which were most often denied. The educational domain, that had to supply the cadre for the new industrial order, had grown in size but failed to adapt to the demands of the younger generation. It was not surprising that something stirred up here, at first with small groups of students criticizing their own living conditions and future prospects in Strasbourg in 1966 (with the pamphlet “De la misère dans le millieu étudiant”/about he misery of student life) and later in the new Parisian suburban university of Nanterre in January 1968. During the opening ceremony of a new swimming pool, students interrupted the French minister of sports Missoffe who proclaimed that this pool was a sign of how the government took good care of the health of the students. The interruption was about the repressive role of sport and the strict gender separation in the dormitories of the Nanterre university campus and the resulting “unhygienic mental situation” for students because of their frustrated sexuality (a way of arguing coming directly from the writings of Wilhelm Reich in the thirties, rediscovered by French youth at that time). This last incident was the beginning of a series of conflicts at the Nanterre campus and led to its closure in March. This only radicalized the student movement. At the same time there were all kind or worker’s protest and action outside the Paris region, like in Caen at the SAVIEM factory. It certainly was not only a student movement, though at first they did get most of the publicity. During the first of May demonstration in Paris, that was for the first time since long officially allowed, students from Nanterre that tried to join in were chased from the march by Communist Party trade unionists(CGT). For a long time there had been frictions between the rather orthodox French Communist Party and other socialist parties, unions and groupings. A period of oscillating events starts: demonstrations, counter-demonstrations provocations: like an arson attack of a student office at the Sorbonne - possibly by a right wing group - and protests meeting against it in the University compound. When the protesters are chased out by the police, the movement spreads over the neighbouring quarter, the Quartier Latin. The student movement is out in the streets. More demonstrations and closures of Universities follow. The movement widens, involving also high school students. Hard confrontations between demonstrators and police, defense and storming of old fashioned barricades that block Parisian boulevards. More and more arrests, wounded and people troubled by what appears in some case to have been more than “just” tear gas (some say it was nerve gas). The student movement triggers more social unrest, in all parts of the country occupations of factories occur, like Sud Aviation in Nantes and Renault in Cléon. Journalists of the ORTF (French state radio and television) form a committee. In Paris the Odéon theater is occupied and functions as a permanent platform for debates on social issues. Solidarity demonstration of students and workers occur, railways and air traffic is blocked by strikes. Not all strikes are called by the trade unions, several are directly initiated by workers, wild-cat strikes. All kind of sectors of society start to express their grievances with the existing system, school teachers, parents of school kids, art students, journalists, neighbourhood committees, an action committee in the National Library, even sport professionals who issue a leaflet with the slogan “le football aux footballeurs (football to the football players). Several university buildings are occupied, not just in Paris but also in the province. All this seems to have little effect on the level of official politics. A vote of censure in the national assembly on the 22. of May is repulsed. A proposal for amnesty for arrested students is accepted as an attempt to still the uproar. All kind of action committees are formed to discuss social issues of a specific segment of society and take practical action. A general assembly with representatives of over a hundred of such committees takes place in Paris. There are some television speeches of president De Gaulle, at first disavowing, later promising a national referendum on a change of social structures that would allow for more “participation” of French citizens. Behind doors negotiations between trade unions and government start, while the movement continues on the streets and in occupied educational institutions and factories. The workers of the Renault Billancourt factories in Paris refuse to accept the first negotiation results of their unions. Mass meetings follow, the government can not deny or ignore the movement anymore. At first the minister of education Perefitte is dismissed and soon after, on May 30, president De Gaulle dismisses the parliament, new elections are announced. A call is launched for the forming of ‘citizens militia’ to defend the Republic. A big demonstration of Gaullist supporters marches down the Champs Elysée. Describing the aftermath in the same way will go beyond the purpose of this short overview. Slowly over the weeks the waves of social unrest calm down. The trade unions declare that they had no political intend with the strikes, just economic demands and start to force the striking workers to accept the agreement with the government (called the “accords of Grenelle”, after the street where the negotiations took place). The elections at the end of June do not alter the relations between the political parties. The left opposition is at that time too much divided to offer an alternative. It takes till 1981, when the newly formed French Socialist Party under Mitterand, succeeds in allying (however temporarily) most of the left political forces, getting both a parliamentary majority and the presidency, though only for a short while... |
Paris May-June ‘68 exhibition 1969 collective undertaking 17 contributing persons 11 contributing organizations 1 locations who persons Berg, Gerard van de: energizer Blazer, Carel: photography Boersma, Pieter: photography Chopin, Henri: collection Dibbets, Karel: media research Haan, Tristan: catalogue editor, historical research Hoeneveld, Herman: production Huisman, Zegert: media research Jong, Rudolf de: collection Nijenhuis, Tineke: collection Oostrom, Bruce van: photography Ravensteijn, Leopold van: media research Ruller, Jaap van: production Tijen, Tjebbe van: cinema curator, documentation Toorn, Jan van: graphic design Waterbolk, Niek: production Wessing, Koen: photography organizations BEL Bruxelles, La Ligne Générale: content provider FRA Paris, Les États Généraux du Cinéma : content provider FRA Paris, Nouveaux Printemps: supporter FRA Paris, SNESUP : content provider NLD Amsterdam NLD Amsterdam, International Institute of Social History : organizer NLD Amsterdam, Seminarie voor Massapsychologie Universiteit van Amsterdam : supporter NLD Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam : accommodator, supporter NLD Amsterdam, Studentenvereniging Machiavelli UvA: supporter NLD Utrecht, Geluidsarchief Instituut voor Geschiedenis UvU: supporter NLD Utrecht, Stichting Film en Wetenschap : supporter media research where/when locations (1969) NLD Amsterdam, Museum Fodor |
|
||||||
|
14 |
 What & Why A manifesto that called for a debate on the function of world fairs and the role of artists, designers and architects in these undertakings: “None of the 62 World’s Fairs which have been held took place in the Third World except for those in Lima (1872), Santiago de Chile (1875), Bombay (1887),Hanoi (1902) and Rio de Janeiro(1922).” “The World‘s Fairs have become Olympian demonstrations of national ideals. Ideals formed by Power monopolies which use their own norms as a standard to determine the freedom of other people, although these same norms are inadequate to allow for freedom within the system where the power monopoly exists.” “Don’t the World’s Fairs force themselves upon us as manifestations of the ”freedom” to have to produce things for which there is no need and to have to consume what we were forced to produce? Don‘t artists, designers and architects give the World Fairs a “cultural image“ and aren‘t they being (mis)used to present a sham freedom?”. The manifesto gives a short overview of the history of world fairs with the national industrial exhibition in Paris in 1798 as a forerunner. It reminds the reader that at first there were no national pavilions, but big buildings that would express world unity, like the Crystal Palace of 1851 in London and the construction in Paris in 1867 that resembled a globe. In 1893 this architectural expression of unity changed when the idea of national pavilions was introduced with the World’s Fair of Chicago. The manifesto has been send around all over the world, often inserted in supportive art magazines. people were asked to start a debate in their own circle and send reactions either pro or contra to the address of the writers of the manifesto, who would assemble these reactions in the form of a publication. This last idea did not realize in those pre-Internet days, were the cost of postage and the limited means for copying gave everything another dimension. The manifesto has also been debated at the Amsterdam Fodor conference on the social role of artists, technicians and scientists, the so-called ‘Fodor Conferences’ (see event 12). To my knowledge there were only a few public statements against participating in the Osaka fair, one by the Dutch architect Piet Blom who refused an invitation to participate in June 1968: “That exhibition is a demonstration of power”. The much admired Experiments in Art and Technology group (EAT) from New York did not have such criticisms, they used Osaka as an opportunity to realize some of their art and technology integration ideas through the work on the Pepsi pavilion. |
Manifesto against World Expo in Osaka 1968-69 Tjebbe van Tijen (author) Nic Tummers (author) 4 contributing persons 2 contributing organizations 1 locations who persons Clay, Jean: support Latham (Steveni), Barbara: support Tijen, Tjebbe van: concept, campaigning Tummers, Nic: concept, campaigning organizations FRA Paris, Robho revue: distributor GBR London, Artist Placement Group (APG): distributor where/when locations (1968-1969) MN4 , Distribution of manifesto: through magazines (foldd-ins), bookshops and at conferences |
|
||||||
|
15 |
 what On Saturday November 22 1969 the theater play “Toller” by Tankred Dorst had its first night in the municipal theater of Amsterdam, the Stadsschouwburg. The theater play is by the German playwright Tankred Dorst and is loosely based on the experiences of the main figure Ernst Toller who was a participant of the revolutionary movement in München in 1991, known as the Münchener Räterepublik (Munich council republic). This ‘council republic’ based on spontaneously formed assemblies of workers and soldiers, only had a short existence. It has to face attacks from both right and left, the last exemplified by the early German Communist Party. The revolutionary republic falls, several of its leaders are imprisoned, some murdered. A group of people who feels closely related to the ideas of workers councils is informed several months before on this new play and its planned performance in Amsterdam. They study the script and do not agree with the way this historical event will be represented on stage. Two of them manage to get a job as supernumerary in the play. Thus plans develop for the disruption and stopping of the play. At the first night several activists have bought a ticket for the performance and go in equipped with smoke and stink bombs and leaflets against the theater play. The two supernumerary actors will give the sign for protest when jumping of stage with their red flags. This happens, smoke bombs are triggered, slogans chanted, leaflets distributed. The fire curtain lowers, the stage is closed off and some debate between public and activists takes place. The play is interrupted for an hour or so, the activists leave the premises and the Toller play is performed after all. why There are a lot of apocadictic statements in the following long quotation from one of the leaflets that was distributed at the first night of the ‘Toller’ play. By translating it now in 2005, thirty six years later, I am confronted with its unpleasant sloganism and poor way of argumentation. Though I did not work on this particular text, I did write another leaflet a few days later that is, at the level of what is meant to be communicated, of the same order. More important is the question of censorship that is raised by this action and one can not escape to say something about it, be it in hindsight... But first the text to get in the mood of that time: ==================== “THERE IS NO MORE TIME for theater, museum, concert, film, radio, television. These are the products of bureaucratic capitalism (maoism, titoism, castroism, russian communism) and for the indoctrination of people. Because this culture has as its only goal to breed passive, consuming civilians, to convince them of their own dependency. This exploitation is always proposed as something self-evident and other options for this authoritarian capitalist society are ridiculed. THIS CULTURE IS REPRESSION! the relaxation and soothing after a day of work. That is why each democratization, modernization or improvement of theater or culture is SENSELESS! it only means a perfect ionizing of the repressive system. The function of this culture is only to uphold the existing situation. For sure the modern, experimental, ‘revolutionary’ theater, that cankers all that could be of importance for the revolution, by inflating it into a spectacle and offering that as a farce to the bourgeoisie. In the theater play ‘Toller’ the ‘Bayern council republic’ is presented as a whim of a few hallucinating idealists, leading necessarily to a failure. It shows the inability of man to organize himself and the indispensability of central power; to allow the theater softies (here the Dutch word ‘slijmer’ is used, literally ‘a slimy person’ tj.) to go home reassured, with their prejudices strengthened. THAT IS WHY EACH PERFORMANCE OF THIS PLAY MUST BE MADE IMPOSSIBLE !! This is not an action that wants to discuss about theater. Toller may not be performed because ‘power to the (workers) councils’ is impossible on stage and contrary to the idea of ‘working councils’ itself, that is already cancered by trade unions and the bosses, because they continue their same system using the name of workers councils.” ========== To start with the last, rather unclear sentence, this was a reference to the other side of the leaflet - most probably written by our/my old friend and 'council communist' Gerard van de Berg who blasts away in his strong agit prop jargon that originates in the thirties of last century - by mentioning "buffoon and blarney" Marius Broekmeyer (of the East-Europe Institute of the University of Amsterdam) together with his symposium on the Yugoslavian 'workers councils' as a possible model for the situation in the Netherlands. This academic exercise between social scientists and some social democrat trade union leaders was depicted in the anti-Toller leaflet as "treacherous corporate compromise". Several of the people who were involved in the action against the Toller play had also protested and disrupted the symposium of Broekmeyer a few months before. The performance of the Toller play was seen as yet another attack on the idea of 'workers councils'. The model of 'workers councils' as a form of revolutionary self organization that grows from daily practice and struggle in factories, workshops, schools and neighbourhoods, has a strong link with the Netherlands. One of its main theoreticians was the Dutch socialist and professor of astronomy Anton Pannekoek. He and his comrade in arms the poet Herman Gorter had been the first to critizise the dangers of centralistic state control in the Soviet Union, already in 1921. They placed the free association of self-organized workers councils in the foreground and were critical of authoritarian party politics. In 1969 many people in the West that professed to be left wing were still - in some way or another - supportive of 'state socialist' practice in countries like the Soviet Union, China, Cuba or Yugoslavia, though many people were not any longer blind for the totalitarian aspects of these regimes. Hungary 1956 had sown the first doubts and the repression of 1968 in Czechoslovakia had just happened. The Soviet Union did not represent anymore a promising future. Some young people embraced China or Cuba or any Third World country that professed socialism as the example for a better world, others felt more attracted toward libertarian forms of socialism. The idea of 'workers councils' offered an attractive alternative: self-organization from below for a better society. Also one could recognize and test in one's own practice, in my case as a squatter and neighbourhood activist, the validity of the theory. This explains the fervor with which the workers council idea had been embraced. Next came the defense of the purity of this idea of workers councils that, apparently, had been raised to the level of an ideology. In religious terms the representation of workers councils in the play by Tankred Dorst was nothing less than "blasphemy". Though debating and banning are things of a different order, they did get mixed up in our practice in the year 1969. One may use the word censorship or even the term 'terror' but it was not by anonymous bomb threats, or secret acts of sabotage that the Toller play was disrupted. Those who opposed it came in person, sat between the public, set of smoke and stink bombs, handed out leaflets, publicly discussed. Together with my friend Pieter Boersma I had been a supernumerary actor in the Toller play, and had rehearsed for several months before jumping from stage with my red flag - during a revolutionary mass scene - as a sign for our allies in the audience. The two deserting actors, smoke bombs, leafletting, shouting, discussions and one incident whereby an enraged actor confronted a demonstrator in the audience with his physical power, all that did only stop the performance for an hour or so. After the ventilators had cleansed the space and the majority of the audience had expressed their wish to continue the play, most demonstrators had left the theater and the Toller play was brought to an end. No arrests have been made during or after this incident. It also needs to be reminded that the action against the Toller play took place in a period when several theater companies in the Netherlands and especially the more traditional oriented 'Nederlandse Comedie' had been targeted by a group of drama students that took the name "Actiegroep Tomaat". This because of the opening act of their protest period of five months (from October 1969 to February 1970) with throwing of tomatoes at the stage during a Shakespeare performance, in the same theater were the Toller action took place. These drama students were primarily concerned with what they saw as an outdated drama practice, they tried in all kind of ways to provoke discussions with theater directors and actors. The Toller action has often been mixed up with these events and some of the Actiegroep Tomaat members continued our one time action with disruptive activities during a second Amsterdam staging of the Toller play in December 1969. Last odd detail: the Flemish director of the Toller play, Walter Tillemans, who witnessed the actions and protest at the opening night in Amsterdam in November, gets shortly afterward involved himself in direct action against the theater establishment in Brussels when a group of experimental actors (de Werkgemeenschap) gets in conflict with the management of the Beursschouwburg. The theater is occupied and a black flag hung out. Tillemans supported this action. |
Toller action - revolutie is geen theater 1969 (revolution is no theatre) collective undertaking 20 contributing persons 1 contributing organizations 1 locations who persons Berg, Gerard van de: activist Berg, Han Bentz van den: actor Boersma, Pieter: activist, supernumerary Bouman, Tom: activist Brandenburg, Paul: actor Breuker, Willem: composer of taped music for Toller play Davidson, Steef: activist Dorst, Tankred: playwright Eissens, Josien: activist Feggelen, Finy van: activist Hamel, Maxim: actor Lucieer, Rudolf: actor Oster, Guus: theatre director Rijn, Cor van: actor Schuurman, Otto: activist Stolk, Rob: activist Tijen, Tjebbe van: activist, supernumerary Tillemans, Walter: stage director Verlaan, Tony: activist Wessing, Koen: photography organizations NLD Amsterdam, Nederlandse Comedie: opposed institution where/when locations (1969) NLD Amsterdam, Stadsschouwburg |
|
||||||
|
16 |
 what During one week a series of playful and cultural festivities was organized in the Amsterdam Nieuwmarktbuurt in which many volunteers from all kind of social and cultural backgrounds took part. The initiative was taken by the “aktiegroep Nieuwmarkt (action group ..) that had been active for two years in this neighbourhood that had on the drawing boards of the municipal planners already been wiped of the map. To boost the resistance and the local morale these festivities were organized, initiated by squatters and their supporters. At first there had been some mistrust on the part of the local population, but with the help of a few original inhabitants who recognized that the neighbourhood was almost doomed and that such social activity could help in changing that, many more people joined in. A former factory hall (De Smederij/Smithy) had been converted in a cultural center and also many street activities took place. The action group had already for four years published a regular weekly newspaper called ‘Nieuwsmarkt’ that conveyed the latest critical news on the town planners undertakings, interviews with older people, photo reportage, poetry and the like. The print shop was also based in the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood and helped also with leaflets, flyers and posters. This print shop had been started by people who had been active in the Dutch provo movement in the mid sixties. In the same neighbourhood some collective carpenters and construction workshops had been set up that helped out with setting things up for the festivities. Also there was a workshop of the artists that formed the Event Structure Research Group (ERG) that followed up the earlier group called Sigma Projekten. They joined the festivities with some inflatables, one of them being made for a movie by the French American filmmaker William Klein Mr., Freedom. This was a huge inflatable dragon that proved a nice play thing for the kids of the neighbourhood. What was most interesting in the program of that week was the combination of very traditional cultural forms like small orchestras, opera singing, and brass bands with outside movie shows, school children making hand painted posters, inflatables and the outside projection of independent movies and p slides by photographers living in the neighbourhood. why Amsterdam had decided in 1968 to build its first underground system that would have four lines: East, West, North and South. As the subsoil of Amsterdam is very soft and muddy there was at that time not a technique to go underneath the existing buildings. So were an underground/metro line was planned everything had to be demolished, as the building method that was chosen used a system of caissons that would be build over ground and then sunk underground by pumping away the soil below. Because of this there had been fierce debates on the trajectory. The first line was going to be the east line that would connect the new suburb in the Bijlmermeer polder with the Central Station. The first part of the trajectory was going parallel with former railway tracks and a street (part of the former Jewish neighbourhood around the Weesperstraat) that had been widened after World war II. Once in the old town the line was planned to make a wide curve to arrive in front of the Central Station in such a way that the planned West line part could be attached without problems. This meant that it had to make a curve that did cut straight through the Nieuwmarktbuurt that had a fanlike structure of small streets. This neighbourhood had also suffered from the tragic fate of its mainly Jewish inhabitants during the German occupation, but still it had many historical small houses left and several blocks of houses of very good quality that had been build in the thirties of last century. There were other options by routing the underground line through a nearby canal but the arrogance of the planners made that this alternative was bluntly refused. In a slow process of several years the population of the neighbourhood had been forced into thinking that nothing could be done against these municipal plans. There was a local committee of original inhabitants, but their policy was just the amount of compensation money to be paid after a forced removal to another part of town. The underground plan was not the only threat to the neighbourhood. On top of the new underground line a highway for cars was planned that would be bordered by rather high office buildings making one big urban wound with some historic houses at the fringes. This situation combined with a constant crisis especially for young people to get proper housing. So they knew the housing question and at the same time saw how good or usable houses, a whole neighbourhood was going to be destroyed in a wider process that forced people to go and live in the suburbs and daily commute elsewhere to their work. There always had been squatters in the town, but this was mostly in a half secret way. The Provo movement in the mid sixties changed this attitude and several people related to this movement started a squatting organization in 1967/1968. The Nieuwmarkt became one of their focal points and led to a wider involvement than just solving their own housing problem. |
Nieuwmarkt Feesten Amsterdam 1971 (neighbourhood festival) collective undertaking 41 contributing persons 3 contributing organizations 4 locations who persons Beeren, Gerrit van: support Berg, Gerard van de: radio Boersma, Pieter: slide projection Botschuyver, Theo: inflatables Bouwman, Tom: reportage Breebaert, Dick: production cafe, Wouter (Jazz cafe): jazz podium Clement, Muriel: production Davidson, Steef: organizer Elsken, Ed van der: slide projection Francken, Wim: carillonneur Haas, Polo de: pianist Hak, Koos: singer Harn, Piet van: organizer Heemskerk, Willem: production Hoeben, Max: poet Hofman, Hannes: organizer Hofman, Tini: organizer Jansens, Magda: story teller Jong, Jan de: production Jozef, : children's activities Keuken, Johan van der: film projection Landkroon, Jan: guitarist Leen, Tante: singer Merwen, Jaap van der: singer Mona, : children's activities Mullens, Harry: magician Nimwegen, Lou van: printer Onderwater, Jelle: singer Poncia, Klaas: organizer Post, Leo: singer Rietveld, Marieke: support Rijn, Cor van: standing-up comedian Schat, Peter: singer Schiks, Carine: singer Shaw, Jeffrey: inflatables Stolk, Rob: printer Stranger, Miek: organizer, singer Tamminga, Mini: production Tijen, Tjebbe van: organizer Zijl, Sietze: organizer organizations NLD Amsterdam, Buurtcentrum De Boomsspijker: organizer NLD Amsterdam, Event Structure Research Group (ERG): supporter NLD Amsterdam, Wijkcentrum d'Oude Stadt : subsidiser where/when locations (1971) NLD Amsterdam, De Smederij (1971) NLD Amsterdam, Koningsstraat (Nieuwmarkt) (1971) NLD Amsterdam, Nieuwmarkt (plein/square) (1971) NLD Amsterdam, Nieuwmarkt (speel plein/play ground) |
|
||||||
|
17 |
 what A huge map of the whole new underground/metro line from the Eastern suburb Bijlmermeer through the old center of Amsterdam, including the Nieuwmarktbuurt, to the Central Station. On this map (scale 1:2000) each planned subway station was indicated and all building plans, real estate deals and other urban influences. Each sport had a color code on the map and a number. All along the map documentation dossiers on each case were attached (with rubber bands) so the public could study each case in detail. A series of diagrams and maps showed the wider impact of such heavy infrastructure for public transport. Comparisons with the more flexible tramway system as it exists in Amsterdam and how that could be improved where made. Also local history was told in a serious of photo panels with big letter captions. This ’museum’ has been an important tool for generating public debate. A detailed report was published in the same time that retook several of these maps and graphics. It was further based on an official government inquiry into the case of the Nieuwmarktbuurt that ha | ||||||||
1966; Catalogo Centro Culturale San Fedele (Milano); catalogue of
group exhibition Martinenghi, Masi, Mazzuchelli, Van Tijen and Shaw.
1967; Newspaper clippings dossier; Continuous Drawing summer 1967.
