Iede Reckman and Rein Verhoef at Billytown

Artists: Iede Reckman and Rein Verhoef

Exhibition title: Plenum

Venue: Billytown, The Hague, The Netherlands

Date: May 10 – June 8, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Billytown, The Hague

“Plenum” is the technical term for the space above a dropped ceiling or under a raised floor; space used for the air circulation of heating and air conditioning systems. In more general terms, these spaces symbolise the functional structures of offices, homes and exhibition spaces that remain out of sight. Working around this architectural condition, the works of Iede Reckman and Rein Verhoef assembled in this exhibition reference or directly present the colour, provenance or usage of elements that are typically imperceptible, obscured or discarded. These interventions turn the ambient world of infrastructure inside out. What was previously invisible now becomes an object on display.

Verhoef’s work bears the imprint of the functional logic inherent to architectural settings, such as storage spaces. For instance, the horizontal steel pillar has the inclination to support a sewer pipe and the concrete pedestal is constructed to be lifted with a pallet jack. The structure supports the superposed frameworks of a glass cart, itself another carrier. For Reckman, it is rather the process of creation of the work that is informed by what is out of sight. Vestigium is made from recycled clay and the greenish grey patina of the Pavilions sculptures are the result of dipping the works in a basin of months of leftover ceramic glaze. Their collaborative installation points towards non-aesthetic functional situations. The form and texture of repurposed ceiling tiles (measuring exactly 1/3rd of the 90x90cm of Billytown’s ceiling raster) are accentuated by pulling them out of their usual context as cladding material.

The act of foregrounding unspectacular functional elements is extended to the support structures of the exhibition itself. Reckman and Verhoef aim to examine the surrounding elements and framing devices of sculpture. Their undertaking has resulted in the construction of pavilion-like concrete walls which are loaded with sculptural meaning, blurring the distinction between sculpture and scenography. While the pavilion is traditionally an architectural device highlighting the effect of the sculpture it houses, its purpose here fluctuates with every change of angle and turn of a corner. The role of the pavilion here remains unstable (unlike a Dan Graham approach, through which the pavilion itself becomes the primary object of display). The concrete support structures can be considered expressive forces on their own, at the same time they continue to serve the sculptures they encompass.

While the sculptures take up the codes of functionality, the concrete walls of the backdrop play with the possibilities of autonomy as sculptural elements. Conversely, as the sculptures adopt the functional language of elements and processes that usually remain unseen, the function of display is also challenged, rendering both enigmatic.

-Laurens Otto