ART-PRESENTATION:Tijs Rooijakkers-Woensel Supertoll!

Tijs Rooijakkers mainly creates spatial installations, which have also been described as sketches in space. They are often a response to the physical location or context in which he works. In “Supertoll!” he aims to build a bridge between the museum and the city, between art and urban culture and between the inhabitants and the environment they live in.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Van Abbemuseum Archive

Using boards from the “Supertoll!” and the “Woensel Supertoll!” Rooijakkers created a theatrical installation inside the more than 25-metre-high tower of the Van Abbemuseum. Tijs Rooijakkers has been working on the “Woensel Supertoll!” art project since 2013. In that same year, he built a monumental timber wall inside Van Abbemuseum, which rapper Fresku embellished with drawings and hand-written texts. Rooijakkers then used the boards from that wall to construct a gigantic wooden spinning top (or tol in Dutch). The artist explains: “The spinning-top is a symbol of the will, power and passion of mankind. Once a top is spinning, it supersedes gravity”. The project was later moved to the area of Woensel, where Fresku grew up. In collaboration with social design collective Tante Netty, Rooijakkers asked the local residents to write down their motivations and ambitions on their own boards. With these boards, Rooijakkers created large wooden clusters spread across the neighbourhood. A permanent sculpture was eventually erected in the heart of Woensel: a “supertol” (super spinning top) covered in hand-written texts by both Fresku and local residents. The art project brought hundreds of Eindhoven residents together and literally got them moving. The top stands for movement from within, and its inner strength appeals to Rooijakkers. Through co-operation the artist succeeds in letting his environment become a part of the dynamic Supertoll! world. Tijs Rooijakkers won the 2017 Eindhoven Culture Prize with the Woensel Supertoll! project. Roy Michael Reymound better known as Fresku, is a rapper from the Woensel-West district in Eindhoven. Fresku started up a whole new movement – the“emo rap” –in the Netherlands. Rooijakkers works together with Fresku because they both want to inspire others with their work. In this artwork the flowing language of rap and the dynamic image of the curved battens and the top reinforce each other. The theme of your own strength, finding your flow and creating a work with that flow is deeply rooted in the work of both artists.

Info: Van Abbemuseum, Bilderdijklaan 10, Eindhoven, Duration: 6/4/19-1/4/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-17:00, https://vanabbemuseum.nl