Toon Fibbe (the Netherlands)

-- Collected quotes from sitting outside at my table

- Biography of Wim Leyendecker/ Koperen Ko. This biography is contradictory, it’s collected from different stories I collected.

- Biography Rigardus Rijnhout – similar approach

- Rambling Research on Rotterdam -

Quotes

“nee dat maakt niet uit, Nee dat geeft niet” “Ik kom wel gewoon in m’n trainingspak” “morgen naar de kapper en sporten en dat allemaal” “Maar dat stond toch ook voor vandaag al op je lijstje?” “niet met vreemden mee” “Hey Gast!” “Maakt niet uit, maakt niet uit” “En toen realiseerde ze zich, AH, ik moet de aandacht delen” “iedereen was heel erg onder de indruk van mijn presentatie” “ik ben 83 en ik heb een hoop meegemaakt” “Ben jij hier je proefschrift aan het schrijven?” “Nou misschien, op het moment probeer ik uit te vinden wat ik hier nou precies aan het doen ben” “Doe je publiciteit?” “Nee ik ben beelden kunstenaar” “ok”

 “je staat wel iets te mooi opgesteld”

“Uitstervend ras.” “Ja erg heh?” “Ja” “m’n oma, daar heb ik het van geleerd” “Ja die vruchtjes die moet je eerst in de week zetten” “Ik zeg uuh.” “Nee” “Maar het is gewoon lekker, het is gewoon lekker” “prettige dagen” “Die blijven stil staan” “dat is heel raar” “Wat ben je aan het fotograferen?” “Niet zoveel” “Supermooie stoel” “Zo jij houdt het weer voor gezien?” “Nee, nee” “maar het is toch mooi?” “We zouden toch naar Disneyland gaan?” “Oh ik dacht dat je aan het schilderen was” “Nee, nee, ik ben aan het schrijven”, “Oh je bent echt aan het schrijven. Ooh”

“istie de bijbel aan het lezen” “Veels te koud om daar te zitten” “Ja ik moet nog even tasjes hebben” “Maar dat maakt niet uit” “Nee dat geeft niet” “Wat is dat voor iemand?” “Tot hoe laat ben je in vredesnaam aan het rijden dan?” “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha” “Ja volgens mij is dat filosofie” “Ja volgens mij ook” “Dan kun je vluchten wat je wilt” “Ja dat zou echt weer iets voor mij zijn” “Ja van die rondjes pasta, dat vind ik echt lekker” “Een grote gore zooi” “Dit is echt waardeloos” “Je moet het gewoon in een vuilnisbak hebben eigenlijk” “Nou de bui valt nog wel mee” “Heb je een paraplu” “Hij doet het nog hoor. Effe afkloppen” “Dat moet toch wel te doen zijn” “Ik heb maar een slaapkamer”

Toen ik aan kwam wandelen met m’n kar wandelde ik langs een meisje dat wild gebarend een groepje mensen iets aan het vertellen was. Het bleek om het bord te gaan dat zij droeg. Het meisje zelf had haar haar geverfd als in alle kleuren, net als een regenboog. Ze riep dat het haar niet uitmaakte of ze uitgelachen werd of niet. Ik las de tekst op het bord in haar handen. Er stond“Save the rainbow”.

Of was het een typisch pubermeisje dat terwijl ze haar uitleg gaf haar actie ook voor zichzelf probeerde the verklaren of the rechtvaardigen? Terwijl ik hier zit wachtten er regelmatig mensen naast mij, bij het beeld van McCarthy. Het is een vreemde situatie, de afstand tussen mij en de mensen is net te klein. Uit schaamte wil ik niet teveel kijken, dit wordt opgemerkt en maakt vervolgens de situatie nog wat vreemder. Veel mensen wachten en ik probeer ze zo onopvallend mogelijk te observeren.

Yesterday a man came to talk to me. He seemed delighted to hear that I was an artist, he told me who won the Borderwijkprijs [Maybe explain what this prize is for context? jf] that day. As I told him what I was working on he seemed disappointed that I did not have a big plan or vision, that there was no clear reason for me to sit here at my desk.

Today I encountered something similar. A woman did not understand why I was sitting here. I told her that I did not really know the purpose of it myself, but that it didn’t necessarily have to have a purpose, and that I thought that was something to be excited about. She looked at me with sympathy but obviously thought I was a bit strange. She told me that when I maybe needed something I should ring the doorbell, she explained to me that she lived exactly opposite to where I was sitting. She went into her house. I waved at her.

There is a man standing here now explaining in a semi-intellectual manner to another man the sculpture of [Maybe say here exactly where you are sitting in the centre of Rotts? - jf] Mcarthy, he’s talking about his biography, the difficulty of placing the sculpture in the city etc. Even though I am clearly obstructing his view the man keeps on ignoring me.

As I was walking with my cart to my usual spot next to the McCarthy sculpture I rolled a cigarette and realized that I did not have a lighter. I asked a man that was sitting at café timmer for a light. Because looked at the cart and asked what I was up to, what kind of artistic endeavors I was to undertake. I told him that I was indeed an artist but that I was not sure what I was going to do exactly. He told me with an ironic tone that this was a proper way to get inspiration.

Two ladies stood in front of me just now and discussed whether I was making drawings.

A man in an electrical wheelchair passes by. He curves over the sidewalk with one leg sticking out at one side, and as he makes a curve around a group of young women, he starts laughing frenetically.

I realize that I have got a clear view into the house of the woman I spoke to a few days ago. As I am sitting here a man opposite me next to the Armani store is holding a notebook and a pencil in his hand. I cannot see whether he is writing or drawing. He keeps on standing there for 15 minutes.

[I really like this way of introduction by way of talking about other peoples reaction to you, it sets a nice tone, pace and view for the reader- jf]

Since my goal was to sit at my desk and to find out what it is what I want to observe, or do, I feel I should become more specific about what to observe. Groups of people move in all kinds of direction, parts of conversations pass by. Half of the time not retraceable to the person who pronounced them. A klaxon. The bell of the tram sounds. A girl recognizes her friend on the street. A tourist takes a picture. Somehow moving from inside the studio building into the city feels essential. It is exactly in this moving in [and?] out that there is a kind of outsider position established which enables to have a proper… A mobile position on the fringe establishes a connection between what I see and what I hear. As I normally feel immersed in the city, I feel incapable to grasp it…. As many metaphors have been used as tools to grasp the city, I don’t feel like adding one. But to take one aspect of the metaphor which is to choose a perspective to look at something, to make it visible even maybe. To decide on a perspective to look from, quite literally, and then to move on to a different perspective. I grab a pen and paper, I take a good look around. Funnily enough by sitting on a chair one already is in a position lower than usual. It makes a big difference somehow. The desk in front of me starts functioning almost like a kind of framing device. My view on the street has become strangely cinematic. It enables me to see the street in a way that … cannot possibly see otherwise. Much in the same way that a framing of a picture of movie can make visible what normally remains unnoticed. When I look to the right I can see the Coffee Company, young people drinking coffee, working on their laptops on big brown sofa’s, comfortable chairs and big tables with loads of magazines and newspapers. As I’m unpacking my bag, and put my books and articles out on the table I realize the parallel in the situation.

As I am looking towards the people with their laptops inside the Coffee Company I have a suspicion that I have to myself as well; are they really working or are they just pretending to work? [why do you think this? why could it be interesting or strange in ralation to you/ the sociality of the city? - jf] As on the second day I have troubles with finding a good spot again, although I decided to go to the same square that I went to yesterday. [explain a bit more? - jf]

`Giant When I grew up I was told once about the Giant of Rotterdam. Images came to mind a gigantic man towering over the modern architecture of Rotterdam. When I was a child no information on his biography was given and the Giant of Rotterdam became for me a mysterious omnipresent figure wandering around the city of Rotterdam. I started to ask around in my direct environment. My mother told me that she remembered seeing him as a child, or that sometimes friends would pretend that he was walking down the street around the corner. As I started to look the giant up it seemed unlikely my mother being born in 1954 and The Giant of Rotterdam was already in a wheelchair then. His final height was 2.38 m, his feet were 36 cm long and his shoe size was 62. His hands were 22 cm long and 14 cm wide. The span between his hands was 2.43 m. His final weight was 230 kg. Rigardus Rijnhout, also known as the giant of Rotterdam who lived from April 21, 1922 tot 13 April 1959 in The Netherlands in Rotterdam. When he was still alive they used to say that he could reach the roof gutter when he raised his hand. They say he ate 25 sandwiches daily, 5 steaks and four glasses of juice. They said that the door to his house had to be extended for him to fit through the door. At request he would manually extinguish street lanterns.

The Giant of Rotterdam has become one of the better-known figures in the recent popular history of Rotterdam. How is it possible that someone, who during his lifetime was unable or prohibited even to actively partake in society and forced into a marginal position, could become a symbol for the identity of the city. I started to wonder wether there is a potential power position to be found in his position. or did he merely function as a plaything iterating a pre-existing identity. [not exactly sure what that means, i might be being stupid but maybe expand a bit? - jf] (I want to look into these questions and trace whether there is an agency to be found in the images that Rigardus Rijnhout sold of himself and to trace how the stories told about him connect to these pictures. ) On april ??, a lifesize staue was revealed of Rigaruds Rijnhout in a park near to the house where he used to live [where is it? - jf]. I the depicts him on a plinth, on it it reserves space for the viwer to paricapte and stand next to the sculpture to become the norm to which the abnormal height of Rigardus Rijnhout becomes emphasized and clearly seen by the onlooker. Casts of his shoes are placed next to him and serve a similar purpose. The foundation "The Giant of Rotterdam 'has called the statue a symbol for the fast growth of Rotterdam after the war. The giant is depicted in a ‘posture characteristic of him’ In a proposition for the sculpture made by the Rotterdam-based artist Yasser Ballemans the body of RIgardus Rijnhout was proposed to be made from miniature scaffolding, complete with miniature builders working on a ‘construction’. Collected biography Although he was trained as a technician he [the giant? jf] never worked in that profession. After being employed to paint ceilings and as a porter, he started to travel through The Netherlands and sold of himself at fairs. He never actively worked in vaudeville, though he once replaced John Albert Kramer in London, who was another giant from The Netherlands. At the same time he worked in Rotterdam where it was possible to hire him to wear and walk around with advertisement on sandwich boards. As he got older it became more and more difficult for him to walk.

In his thirties he became disabled because of a bike accident.  A crane was needed to get him into the hospital. The police had to block the street to keep thrill seekers? at bay . At 32 years old (1954) he became dependent on a wheelchair. He still wandered through the city. After his accident he was often seen near the Spido tour boats and sold signed postcards of himself from the times that he could still walk. 

His last hospitalization was in the Academic Hospital in Leiden on 24 November 1958 until his death. [Im not sure exactly why the biography of his hospitalisation interests you, maybe say something about that?-jf] His left eye had by that time become blind, and suffered from problems like extreme fatigue, cold clarity, appetite, polyuria and polydipsia. He was buried in Rotterdam. His grave was cleared in 1975 and his skeleton is now located in the Leiden Anatomical Museum. His father spoke at the grave of his son the following words: Spot en hoon waren vaak je deel, maar je haatte de mensen daarom niet, want je had een hart van goud. Koperen Ko Koperen Ko was the nickname of Wim Leyendecker.. He was a travelling busker who performed in many places, but settled in Rotterdam in the !!! A reason for his local fame in Rotterdam was his appearance which was in Rotterdam at that time seen as unusual When peforming on the streets he was always completely dressed in white and played four sinstruemnts simultaneously; an acoordian, cymbals, a pointed copper hat amd a drum that he wore on his back and was played by drumsticks that were connected with string to his feet. With he every step he took the drum was played. On this drum the father of Koperen Ko was depicted wearing a similar drum and on the drum that his father carried was aagian a picture of his father showing a lineage in a single object. Koperen Ko took his repertoire from organ music, songs of Vader Abraham, and old waltzes. I became interested in this drum because it could be used as a device that would emphasize the act of walking in the city. I made a similar drum and wanted to use the drum as a spatial mapping device through the sound that the drum produced; a kind of sonar or blind man’s stick that allowed access to the collective memories attached to Koperen Ko. This area between performance, reenactment and tool for investigation interested me. The drum functioned as a tool that (partly) told a story, which made an easy connection to the collective memories surrounding figures like Koperen Ko. Making walks or just entering cafés with the drum sparked conversations about Koperen Ko and other famous figures in Rotterdam and its surroundings. A collected biography. The father of Koperen Ko was the second generation that busked as a oneman-band. Whuke performing he dressed as a hunter and grew a big moustache. There was a story told about his father hat he was an emperor who fled from germany just before the first world war broke out. He came from Dusseldorf, wandered through northeastern Germany and Austria and eventually came to Dordrecht. Wim was born in Germany 1909 and was raised in foster care in Dordrecht. He was an only child. His mother died when he was four years old. His stepmother was a musician as well and was called ‘Musicerende Kootje’ and played the bornbas. The relationship with his stepmother was not very good and he decided to join his father on the street collecting money (mansen –collecting money in a tin box). He accompanied his father sometimes with a harmonica. He did not finnish school he often had tantrums and once he threw his shoe to the head of the teacher. In 1933 he left middelburg and went to Dordrecht. From there he traveled throughout the country to perform at fairs and carnival festivities. From 1939 onwards he started to perform in small villages and later started to perorm in larfer towns. He eventually traveled across the country. In Dordrecht he was known as the Belleman (the belleman) and in Leeuwarden he was known as Hoempa. During the second world war he was forbidden to play music. He lost his musical equipment several times to the germans and was for some time imprisoned in a labour camp in Middelburg called “Het Lage” where he was forced to make carpentry tools for the Germans. He never talked about his experiences much. After the war and many years of traveling around in caravans he settled with his wife Martha in Rotterdam. He was usually found at the Lijnbaan, the Nieuwebinnenweg and the Oude Binneweg. He became more and more known. Several times he appeared on television and he performed for the queen. He performed at the wedding of princess Christina. He served as a model for the creation of the character Nikkele Nelus by the dutch comedian Wim Sonneveld. The song that Wim Sonneveld sang as Nikkele Nelis was not appreciated by Koperen Ko. He believed that the lyrics of the song referred to the supposed ogling of his wife Marha, who because of an eye disease blinked her eyes a lot. He owned 10 pairs of white pants, shirts and sweaters.

On august 30, 1970 his car was stolen with his music equipment in it, He earned from five to a hundred and seventy guilders a week with his act in the 70’s. He was registered at the chamber of commerce as Koperen Ko. He always repaired his car himself because did not trust car mechanics to touch his car., He would have loved to become a car mechanic. He cleaned his copper hat every week, this took an hour of his time. His wife hated it.

[The consistent biograpic details are quite strange without contextualisation, its seems stylistic somehow but im not sure why, i like it a lot but later on perhaps it could be more directive?...jf]

J. W. Leiendekker Koperen Ko had different nicknames in several places; Dordrecht, he was called De Bellenman in Limburg became Skellenhoorn called in Groningen, where he was called Harlekijn, in Leeuwarden, he was called Hoempa and Holland, he was called Jan met de Bellen

Rambling Research on Rotterdam

[Steve: >>> Yes, this ‘volunteerism’, and ‘responsiblisation’ (described below) is right in the centre of the way neo-liberalism conceives of the democratic subject. This links very well with the way you reason the role of the artist (through the instrumentalisation of autonomy) has developed . I think you can make a more explicit link between the political reasoning described in ‘really very rambling research’ and the examples you give here. The issue is that on the level of local policy the figure of the ‘autonomous’ artists is used as an instrument—what are the implications of that?

There is also work to be done on your role as the person who takes over from these local figures – what happens when these figures are mapped on to the neo-liberal construction of the artists in the city?]

It can be said the bigger city in The Netherlands that is most effected by the consequences of de-industrialization processes. The harbour was once the main supplier of jobs, now it is no longer Rotterdam suffered from the migration of the middle-class and middleclass to the suburbs 25 years ago, its population has a lower educational level that in any other city in The Netherlands and has trouble with keeping the population with a higher educational level within the city. I just received a leaflet in my mail showing me the options for new city initiatives by citizens of Rotterdam that I can vote on (needs elaboration). In the last couple of years Rotterdam seems to have come under the influence of the ideas on the Creative city of Richard Florida. The ideas of Richard Florida have been properly introduced in The Netherlands in … in during a flashy. His message is that the creative milieu of artists, technicians, media companies, advertising agencies and designers would become the economic engine of the city in the 21st century. Both left and right winged City …. were enthusiastic. The left was because of the idea that creative environments are malleable and the right because they believe in the link of creativity and liberalization. One of the main theorists of the creative city (though it is often forgotten that the term was actually coined by Charles Landry) What is essential according to Florida for a city to attract the Creative Class, is that it must possess ‘the three ‘T’s”: Talent, Tolerance and Technology. According to the theory of Richard Florida, cities that are traditionally home to large groups of blue-collar workers, such as Rotterdam, would do well to open their old, close-knit neighbourhoods and alter the composition of the population. Florida argues that members of the creative class value meritocracy (governement of holding power by people selected on the basis of their ability) diversity and individuality. He has statistically demonstrated that old workingclass cities traditionally don’t do well as creative environments, because there is supposedly too much local resistance to new froms of creativity. What is visible in Rotterdam is how the city got entangled in an intercity competition to attract the creative class. Ideas about the creative city have influenced policies and how these policies are now distributing citizens. How the ‘uncreative population groups are moved out of their environments and are redistributed over the entire city landscape and how ‘creative citizens are being imported to serve as rolemodels. In Neighbourhoods like Hoogvliet, Spangen and Crooswijk these strategies have been employed. Volvo Ocean Race, the Heineken Dance Parade, the Fortis Rotterdam Marathon, Bavaria City Racing [not sure what these are? jf] and many more. All of this can be seen as a way to stimulate the local economy. The hypes of brainpoirts, kennisclusters,[not sure what these are either? jf] the creative city en funshopping and cultural festivals All this as means to make Rotterdam less dependant on its harbour to provide a more stable source of income, instead of the unreliable global flow a goods and capital. The irony of it is that this can all be seen in the light of a new struggle amongst cities. The events seem in fact to have had the opposite effect. The creative formula is not generated by its own potential, but is copied from other world metropolises. Attracting companies, residents and visitors is what is important in city politics. The origin of this city politics can be found in the 1960’s, when the wave of suburbanization began. The city grew smaller while the areas around it started growing. In times before economic prosperity led to a growth in the population and economic activity in the city now the opposite happened. [I wonder whether it might be interesting to mention about neighbouring cities and contrasts/competitiion with an example? jf] Several projects: ‘Groeibriljanten’ (Growing Diamonds). For this project, all Rotterdammers were called upon to inventory the ‘opportunities’ in their neighbourhoods and formulate them in terms of projects that people could vote on. For the most popular projects, such as the Deliplein or the Katendrecht, an attractive burst of funding was reserved to give the local partners (including the Rotterdam Development Corporation, the district government and local artists) the ability to actually cash in on these opportunities. In addition, the city of Rotterdam made empty properties available for temporary cultural initiatives at negligible expense. Organizations such as WORM@ VOC and Now & Wow took up residence in old warehouses on the condition that they facilitated neighbourhood activities. In short, the city of Rotterdam is increasingly leaving urban development in the hands of spontaneous initiatives generated from the bottom up. At the moment I just received a voting card in the mail for a similar project. For ‘DichterlijkeVrijheid’ (Poetic Freedom) project, for example, the city of Rotterdam donated an entire block of buildings, the Wallisblok, to young, creative individuals.This gift to the homeowners, who were expected to fix up the property and bring to the neighbourhood, was possible after the original owners were bought out. The policy seems to focus on specific favoured forms of creativity. This gives advantages – attractive and inexpensive living and working oases, for example – to specific groups, which moreover generally require no further guidance, while the majority are forced into the marketplace or into a severely reduced public housing system in order to meet their housing needs.

Really very rambling research

Originally artistic autonomy was predicated on the separation from life. Art was to be divorced from obvious functionality, instrumental reason, intentionality, necessity and efficiency as means to distance itself from all social coercion. While art apparently evaded instrumentalization, it simultaneously lost social relevance and the avantgardes set out to recreate (restore? or Create?) the connection between art and life. Again and again in the 20th century the idea arose to destroy or radically change the museum. Whether is was in the 1910’s, 1920’s (Lewis Kachur has described as the “ideological exhibitions” of the historical avantgarde such as the 1920 International Dada Fair and the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition or the 1960’s and 1970’s. think of happenings, fluxus intstructions, 1970’s performance art and Joseph Beuys’s declaration that “everyone is an artist.” Often accompanied by a rhetoric of democracy and emancipation. Joseph Beuys’s democratization projects showed that the public could throw off its passive attitude and start to play an active role in art. And the idea that the process of working together could be more important than the final result, had been tried and tested years ago by social artist groups such as John Latham and Barbara Stevini’s English Artists’ Placement Group (1966 - 1989).) The Artist Placement Group (APG), aimed at placing artists in British government and industrial companies. Through a totally different way of thinking and perceiving, artists could as outsiders offer a positive contribution to the organizations in which they were placed. Simultaneously it was also a way to break free from the ghetto of the art world, with its gallery and museum system politics. (A dutch equivalent of this group was The Eventstructure research group founded by the Australian-born artist Jeffrey Shaw)

the 1990’s where the exhibition space was presented as a laboratory rather than a white cube, to differentiate themselves from bureaucracy encumbered and /or collection-based museums. The exhibition space was viewed to be an interstice. Interstice a term used by Karl Marx to describe trading communities that elude the capitalist economic context by being removed from the law of profit. The interstice is a space in human relations which fits more or less harmoniously and openly into the overall system, but suggests other trading possibilities than those in effect within this system. “This is the precise nature of the contemporary art exhibition in the arena of representational commerce: it creates free areas, and time spans whose rhythm contrasts with those structuring everyday life, and it encourages an inter-human commerce that differs from the "communication zones" that are imposed upon us.” A lot of the community-specific work that was produced in the 1990’s led the museum and art institutions to transgress their own borders. It could be viewed as a reaction to the open-ended, interactive work that is resistant to closure that was produced in the 1990’s. Emergence of two kinds of practices One representing low-key, lounge-type gatherings, the other large-scale socially engaged activities. One of them being Artists who use social situations to produce dematerialized, antimarket, politically engaged projects. Underlining a lot of these practices is the belief in the empowering quality of creativity and collective action. Underlining these projects is the desire to play a role in the strengthening of social bond in the public sphere, and the assuptiom that the loss of the ‘social bond’ is something that the artist is incumbent to repair. These projects sit comfortably in the tradition of the avant-gardes and the modernist call to blur art and life. Though one cannot say that through these practices art proliferated in places that it had never been before, it did start to occupy a more and more conspicuous presence in the public sector. Leading up to a situation that even in area’s where art did not seem to play any kind of role, it is still present in various ways and the way in which it effects daily life become more and more difficult to identify. It has replaced public spheres with what Hito Steyerl would call an occupation of art. In her talk Hito Steyerl elaborates on how artistic autonomy historically was predicated on the separation from life. Art was therefore to be divorced from obvious functionality, instrumental reason, intentionality, necessity and efficiency as means to distance itself from all social coercion. While art apparently evaded instrumentalization, it simultaneously lost social relevance and the avantgardes set out to recreate (restore? or Create?) the connection between art and life. She claims that instead the opposite happened, art did not dissolve into life but life became dissolved in art. . As the avant-gardes transgressed the boundaries of art, going into life, somehow something else happened and the result wasn’t necessarily as predicted. Art ended up incorporating everything it separated itself from but now within its own aesthetic paradigms. Initially artistic autonomy was predicated on the separation of life and art, and therefore was to be divorced from obvious functionality, instrumental reason, intentionality, necessity and efficiency as a means to distance itself from all social coercionThe initial divisions of labour that were important to separate art and life were reversed. This is something that happened and that has of course many other reasons. The avant-gardes were certainly not the reason. Main reason The divisions of labour which where so important to separate art and life that started to be reversed on many other levels. As we have seen, this transition is based on the role model of the artist as a person who refuses the division of labour and leads an unalienated lifestyle. If the origin of artistic autonomy lies in the refusal of the division of labor (and the alienation and subjection that accompany it), this refusal has been reintegrated into neoliberal modes of production to set free dormant potentials for financial expansion. In this way, the logic of autonomy spread to the point where it tipped into new dominant ideologies of flexibility and self-entrepreneurship, acquiring new political meaning.

(your socalled rambling research on Rotterdam was for me the best part of the text! So much to say about these issues, it can be such a golden platform for you to let your city originals interplay with... it will of course be some bridging to do. So all in all, fantastic material and I look forward to read more. FRO)