Four-story, flat-roofed complex in a somewhat Expressionist style
KATRINA PALMER
February 21 – May 24, 2026

Guest writer: CÉDRIC FAUQ

My exhibition, Four-Story, Flat-Roofed Complex in a Somewhat Expressionist Style, is at A Tale of A Tub, Rotterdam, from February 21 to May 17, 2026. I want to spend the duration of the show demolishing their front wall. There are complications. The proposed demolition is prohibitively expensive, absurd and self-defeating. The institution occupies the centre of a housing estate, the Justus van Effencomplex. Good community relations and the programming of contemporary artwork are central to the institution’s work. The wall between A Tale of A Tub and the residential homes is porous, but the suggestion of removing it altogether draws attention to its existence which evokes division as much as it highlights the institution’s value. Also, the estate is a superb example of Modernist architecture, listed as having heritage status, notable for its innovative elevated streets and attention to detail, including its Expressionist brickwork and the former bathhouse and washhouse, now home to the art institution. The architect, Michiel Brinkman (1873–1925), ascribed to a doctrine of Theosophy and (although more dubious Theosophic principles promote spiritual abstraction from the everyday) he created well-designed housing to support social cohesion. Although an art institution was not part of Brinkman’s original vision, it does contribute positively to the environment. Without the wall, there would be no institution, no exhibitions and a culturally significant building would no longer exist. But the work is already underway. A consultation process is set in motion, incorporating the curator and interested parties. Through all of this I’m conscious of the contradictions of attempting to produce space, of wanting to see what isn’t there, of being critical of aggressive territorial claims in the global context, while temporarily occupying a site and suggesting an act of forceful abstraction. The demolition, however, is a proposal, a what if that is mobilised through discussion, material displacement or decentering and specially constructed notices. Expanding from my writing practice, I’ve made digital prints and added to them manually to augment the space between lines of text. And underneath my desk, I recorded a video. The exhibition situation extends through the institution’s basement, across the ground floor and into a reading area on the mezzanine where a short story incorporates the protagonist’s Notes Towards a Paranoid Construction.