The Helix and The Museum, The Archival Architecture of an Anachronicle

DAI PUBLICATIONS is a collection of artist’s books issued by the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and designed in collaboration with the Werkplaats Typografie (WT). As of 2006 the series is supervised by an annually appointed collection editor; for 2011, visual artist Rebecca Sakoun. The 2011 edition consists of 16 publications.
This artist publication attempts to give shape to a long-lived rumour that has been in circulation for the last hundred years, concerning a copy of the Rijksmuseum building in Amsterdam called the Helix which is located in Maasmechelen, Belgium. This rumour never made it’s way to Amsterdam. The publication consists out of two parts, the first being a script or play inspired by and based on a meeting between two gentlemen who are both connaisseurs of either building. In coffee and fruitcake they meet in a piano showroom across the street from the so-called Copy, where they excavate the relationship established by the existence of this unofficial knowledge. In the three acts of this script laughter is used in a formal sense to surface latent feelings and a complex relationship embedded within this particular history where this history is not fixed but rather a daily practice. The general story line is supported on findings from prior research into five different archives, both in the Netherlands and Belgium, part of which is included in the publication.