Steel which seems to break free of its physical limitations as spirals burst out, twisting and interconnecting with themselves, their forms repeated in shadows dancing on the walls. A heavy material appears lightweight; a solid material appears fluid; an inert material seems to be alive, happy in the modern white gallery environment of Rosenfeld Porcini or in the elaborate early 20th century former Pearl Assurance Company headquarters, now the Rosewood Hotel London.
Pieter Obels’ steel sculptures in his series “The Metaphysics of Sculpture” fill both floors of the Rosenfeld Porcini in Fitzrovia, with four also on show at the Rosewood Hotel London.
Tilberg in the Netherlands today appears a very modern city, with an impressive system of cycling routes, three universities and many new developments. Behind the modern city is a long history of continual change. The 15th century castle was demolished in 1858 for a factory which itself was demolished twenty years ago and, as the wool industry declined after the second world war and the city sought to reinvent itself, many things of beauty were lost, most famously when Cees Becht the mayor gained the nickname of Cees the Sloper (Cees the demolisher). The neighbourhood Koningswei (King’s Meadows) was levelled to the ground and replaced by Koningsplein (King’s Square), the old classical city hall (which was a national-registered monument) came down for a modern black complex and the old railway station was also replaced.
It was not just buildings that were lost, but natural things that were loved by the community, in particular the old lime tree in the Heuvel, one of the important squares, chopped down for a bicycle parking basement, leading to protests and attempts to plant cuttings of the original tree, all of which have since died, though another lime tree has been planted in a different location.
On the positive side, the city has an important contemporary art museum, founded from the estate of Jan de Pont and housed in a former building of the Thomas de Beer wool mill which was refurbished to designs of Benthem Crouwel Architects from Amsterdam, retaining much of the character of the original factory and said to be a protype to Tate Modern’s refurbishment of the former Bankside power station in London. Today it houses works by artists including Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei, Mark Wallinger and Bill Viola. Tilburg University also created one of the first of the new generation of university libraries, with its new building in the 1990’s that sought to break free from old constraints and rethink what a university library should be in the modern world.
The artist Pieter Obels (born 1968) today lives and works in Tilburg and his work is said to “echo the world we would like to inhabit; a world dominated by beauty and awareness of nature. The curve as opposed to the straight line recalls a gentler, less severe universe where objects embrace and do not repel, where dialogue is always possible and agreement is always found”. Perhaps a commentary on some aspects of Tilburg’s redevelopment in the late 20th century and also the modern world where the need for dialogue and consensus-building has never been more important.
