Talking to Dan Walwin about his new art initiative, Pulsie – ‘I like the idea that making shows is in some ways the same as making art’
Pulsie is a new Amsterdam art space hosted by a food company. Tessa Bourguignon spoke to artist Dan Walwin, founder of this new initiative, on the occasion of its opening show, Lyrics.
Located on Zeeburgerpad in Amsterdam-East, the facade of the food company is covered with colourful graffiti. Although the building itself is very distinctive, only a piece of printed paper with the word “Pulsie” hints that something might be going on inside. Walwin is expecting me. He says that most visitors this Saturday will find out about the event through the online announcement.
The interior is a little unusual for an exhibition. Walwin knew that this working factory kitchen, where food is produced and frozen, would be free on the weekends. After gathering some courage, he approached the owners, who were generous enough to agree to his idea of organizing a two-day exhibition. Looking around, you can still see all the kitchen equipment: large countertops, heavy doors leading to freezers, and stacked crates. Yet the space mostly gives off a clinical, urban feeling.
Why has Walwin chosen this place for the first show of Pulsie? What’s the urgency behind it? Being an artist himself, Walwin describes his thought process as somewhat obsessive. Once an idea enters his mind, he cannot easily let it go. This idea kept growing because he constantly saw work by colleagues that he liked and wanted to find a way to share. ‘I like the idea that making shows is in some ways the same as making art,’ Walwin tells me. ‘Ultimately, it’s about sharing something you like or are fascinated by.’
The three artists featured in the exhibition are people Walwin has encountered over the course of his career, both as an artist and through organising previous shows. He knew Ansuya Blom, for instance, as one of his advisors at the Rijksakademie. Blom is probably the best-known of the three, Walwin tells me. Her video work Joe Faces (1995) is being shown — a film from the nineties that might be unfamiliar to younger audiences. Projected onto a screen set up between food crates in a darkened room, the 10-minute video follows a man who appears to be slowly losing his mind in his own company. When I walk in, the screen shows a close-up of the man with his mouth wide open. Is it a yawn, or a silent scream?
Anne Le Troter’s work is an audio piece, La Pornopante (2021/23), which visitors can experience through headphones while sitting on grey sofas in a corner of the room. In an ASMR-style voice — a phenomenon popularised on the internet — listeners are drawn into an erotic soundscape exploring plant-based sexuality.
Louise K. Wilson’s contribution greets visitors upon entering. Zehn Mal Null (1992) seems at first the furthest from being an audio piece. On a small table, slides from the original installation are carefully laid out. Accompanied by text, the work recalls Walter Benjamin’s critical reflections on the transparency of photography. Wilson reconsiders the mute spaces of the museum with these silent, haunting images.
In a way, all three works engage with sound, which the exhibition title Lyrics also alludes to — but each does so in a very different register. The show is compact, but it feels like a series of small discoveries, offering glimpses into the artists’ worlds. ‘Since I want to see them, I can imagine that someone else wants to see them too,’ Walwin says.
'Ultimately, it's about sharing something you like or are fascinated by.'
This first exhibition at Pulsie is about creating an open and welcoming space, alongside galleries, museums and project spaces. Walwin thinks there’s room for a space that wants to look for new forms of accessibility to art. He sees it as a show that is questioning the interaction with the visitor in new ways. ‘How would you like to visit an exhibition?’
By choosing to showcase existing works in a company space, the initiative becomes an exploration of what’s possible with limited resources. The emphasis is on temporality and efficiency—on seeing possibilities rather than constraints. Walwin explains that organizing an exhibition this way sidesteps the often frustrating process of securing funding. ‘By doing things without a budget, you have more time to actually make the exhibition instead of endlessly applying for things. The fact that you’re not dependent on money also gives you a certain freedom.’
I ask Walwin about the minimal information leading up to the exhibition.'”I don’t think it’s true that visitors need an interpretive guide,’ he says. ‘Things can work quite well on their own.’ This minimalism continues in the space itself, where only the title, Lyrics, offers the visitor something to hold onto. ‘The show should do the job,’ Walwin insists. ‘By putting certain works together, things can be made precise and articulate.’
Inspiration for Pulsie has come from similar initiatives that started small but grew over time. Walwin cites examples like Bologna, PAKT, and Playbill, which, in his view, exist for similar reasons. There’s no sense of competition, but rather a belief that these places can support each other. ‘The more, the better,’ he says.
The process of organizing the exhibition has been organic. In Walwin’s vision, the creation of an exhibition might even be irrational, an experiment that evolves along the way. While there were some fixed elements for the opening weekend, future exhibitions will grow out of the experiences and encounters of this first show. Walwin’s ambition is to organize a few more group exhibitions in the coming months. The next exhibition, Queens, is scheduled to open Saturday, May 10, with works by Arash Fayez and Carl(e) Gent. ‘There are no concrete plans yet, but it all starts with the imagination. What if…?’
In the end, Walwin says, it’s simple: ‘I want to make exhibitions, and if there’s an audience for it, that’s great. The space is the audience, and the audience makes the space. And if there is one, it’s worthwhile.’
Dan Walwin (1986, UK) is an artist based in Amsterdam. He completed his studies at Goldsmiths College, London, and a residency at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten
Tessa Bourguignon
is an art historian and follows a master at the University of Utrecht
