The Back Room - Paul Beckman

A presentation of ‘unsung hero’ Paul Beckman (Schiedam, 1946-Rotterdam, 2000) marked the launch of this collaborative research project. His furniture sculptures 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.

The Back Room
The project examined the position occupied by both institutions – one as an established museum, the other as a young exhibition space without a collection – at a local and national level. Through this collaboration, TENT and the museum aimed to 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. The Back Room, therefore, raised questions about the role and position of the artist: how does the artist build a reputation and what factors influence their success?

Arie de Groot, Charly van Rest, Esma Yiğitoğlu
Four solo exhibitions at TENT focused on artists who have occupied an important position in the Rotterdam art world: Paul Beckman (1946-2000), Arie de Groot (1937-2016), Charly van Rest (1949), and Esma Yiğitoğlu (1944-2009). Their oeuvres are relevant today, because the strategies and materials these artists used resonate with the younger generation.

The Back Room series at TENT ran concurrently with Project Rotterdam at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, which focused on a young generation of artists not yet known as institutional figures.