Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling? from the Dutch duo Bik van der Pol comes the winner of the 2010 edition of EnelContemporanea. We went to have a look at the location that saw the work born and developed. The studio of the two artists.

Enel’s commitment to contemporary art becomes permanent renewing its relationship with MACRO, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. After the donation to the museum of the work Frontier by Doug Aitken it will be re-installed in an updated version in the spaces of the museum. The Enel Contemporanea Award, in fact, is a project whose starting point and destination are both located in the spaces of the Nuovo MACRO.

Enel Contemporanea began its journey in 2007, with three artistic projects inspired by the complex relationship between a city, its use and its consumption: a blend of conservation and innovation.

The first edition, curated by Francesco Bonami and realized in collaboration with the Municipality of Rome, featured three prominent international artists; Angela Bulloch, Jeppe Hein and Patrick Tuttofuoco, whose works represented the subject of the exchange of energy that occurs between a city and its inhabitants.

Bik Van der Pol work is systematically related to invention of new architectural forms, often resorting to temporary constructions that provide new spaces for public interactions – ranging from mobile cinema to diving platform, from public library to multimedia interfaces… Systematically, the interventional projects of Bik Van der Pol leave highly inspiring and enduring legacies in the communities where they take place.

Project developed for One Day Sculpture in collaboration with Elam School of Fine Arts. Activating a site in a state of waiting and anticipation, Bik Van der Pol tap the social and political histories of Albert Park in Auckland, focusing on the use of this city park as a place for raising awareness.
1440 minutes towards the development of a site, project for One Day Sculpture

Albert Park, Auckland, New Zealand, 2009

Ecological issues are also regularly involved in Bik Van der Pol projects while political and cultural debates are brought to the centre of their invitations for public participation.
Public Arena. Veduta, Biennale de Lyon 2009

Art is either plagiarism or revolution, or: something is definitely going to happen here

Performance and film, Museum of revolution, New Belgrade, Serbia, 2007

Sleeping with ‘Sleep’, a film of Andy Warhol / here at ‘Territories’, Tokyo Opera Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2000

Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, the winning artists, were invited by Hou Hanru. Hanru (born in 1963 in China) is a prolific and dynamic critic and curator based in Paris and San Francisco. He is Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and also Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. Described as a significant international voice on cultural difference, Hou is a regular contributor to several other journals on contemporary art and publications. He has been a consultant for several cultural institutions internationally.

The duo Bik Van der Pol wins Enel Contemporanea Award 2010.

The project Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling? brings the natural elements together in an architectural model loosely based on the design of the icon of modernism, the Farnsworth house. This model will function as a temporary home for butterflies, as the ultimate agents for idealist ideas of transformation, change and recycling. Nature becomes spectacle, a spectacle inside the confinements of the museum wall. The energy used for this project obviously should be ‘green’.