Tent

Paul Beckman

The Back Room – Paul Beckman

11 Feb - 10 Apr 2016

Paul Beckman, Twee boekenkasten naar antieke spiegel, 1987 (collectie Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen)
The Back Room - Paul Beckman_11.02 - 10.04.2016_in TENT Rotterdam (photo Sander van Wettum)
The Back Room - Paul Beckman_11.02 - 10.04.2016_in TENT Rotterdam (photo Sander van Wettum)
The Back Room - Paul Beckman_11.02 - 10.04.2016_in TENT Rotterdam (photo Sander van Wettum)
The Back Room - Paul Beckman_11.02 - 10.04.2016_in TENT Rotterdam (photo Sander van Wettum)
The Back Room - Paul Beckman_11.02 - 10.04.2016_in TENT Rotterdam (photo Sander van Wettum)
PAUL BECKMAN
The Back Room – Paul Beckman
11 February – 10 April 2016

On Thursday 11 February at 20.00 hrs, TENT presents the opening of The Back Room – Paul Beckman. It is the first part of a special collaboration between TENT and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, in which underexposed yet iconic Rotterdam artists feature in four solo exhibitions. Curated by Noor Mertens, curator of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

The project examines the position occupied by both institutions – one as an established museum, the other as a young exhibition space without a collection – at local and national level. Through this collaboration, TENT and the Boijmans Van Beuningen reveal the subjective process of inclusion in, or exclusion from, the art canon. The artists presented in The Back Room are partly collected by the museum. However, their work has not always received the attention it deserves. Their oeuvres are currently important for different reasons. They are artists whose use of materials and whose strategies resonate with the work of today’s younger generation of artists. The Back Room, therefore, raises questions about the role and position of the artist: how does the artist build a reputation and what factors influence their success? At TENT, The Back Room runs concurrently with Project Rotterdam at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which focuses on a young generation of artists not yet known as institutional figures.

Four solo exhibitions at TENT will focus on artists who have occupied an important position in the Rotterdam art world, but are largely unknown to the present generation: Paul Beckman (1946 – 2000), Arie de Groot (1937), Charly van Rest (1949), and Esma Yiğitoğlu (1944 – 2009). The launch of this collaborative research project is marked by a presentation of ‘unsung hero’ Paul Beckman’s furniture sculptures. Paul Beckman made furniture that took on a freer sense of form. Beckman’s work addressed critical questions about the way we shape our environment, and he examined the boundaries of art and design. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Centraal Museum Utrecht, and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam have all previously presented Paul Beckman solo exhibitions.