Emilia Keller
Tony Coopman, what do you sell in your shop?

For the duration of the Pump & Dump exhibition (29 March to 1 June 2025), the Coopman CVL Partners collective is running their business from within the walls of KIOSK on the Campus Bijloke site of KASK & Conservatorium Gent. On 29 March their store ceremonially opened its doors for the first time. Since, and for the coming months, it is welcoming customers 7 days a week, from 12:00-18:00, during KIOSK’s opening hours. Most Thursdays, the Coopman CVL Partners team is present on site. On all other days, during their absence, they are represented by a cardboard stand-up of themselves and have made an agreement with KIOSK’s gallery supervisors to oversee and conduct all business transactions with incoming customers for them.

Above the door of the exhibition space hang two large wooden boxes, made by hand. One of them indicates ‘open’, the other ‘closed’ with a light switched on in the corresponding one. Just beyond its threshold lies the doorstep of a second, temporary space which openly indicates that it has been constructed: The beams that hold up the wooden walls of the Pump & Dump shop are not hidden but recognisable, evoking the idea of a scenery or backdrop of sorts. It is a pop-up shop in the literal sense, a room within a room, built by hand and made of wood — true to the method and material favoured by its chief, visual artist and businessman, Tony Coopman.

Just beyond KIOSK’s door, visitors enter the Pump & Dump showroom through a wooden, handmade, saloon-style set of doors. Once inside, having stepped into the scene, with its high wooden panels and plenty to discover on the walls and in the display cases (e.g. guns, knives, fossils, toy cars, sunglasses, electronic devices, and much more), it is easy to forget the surrounding space. Despite having no ceiling and consisting of many small and continuously shifting details, the showroom appears as an encompassing microcosm, coherent in itself: Welcome to Pump & Dump, a collective endeavour of the Coopman and CVL Partners group.

The collective’s name is made up of its members’ surnames, whereby two of them (the CVL partners, Henri Cuelenaere and Lenja Van Laeken) appear with their initials only and just one of them has his name written out in full: Coopman, Tony (the chief) — the man who gives this enterprise his name.

Coopman is a passionate collector. In preparation for the shop’s opening — a great opportunity for him to obtain desired items — he drew up the following wish list: “LED lights; Lava lamp; Pokémon, Hot Wheels; Diamonds; Stones; Flashlight; Camera; Batman; Dinosaurs; Gameboy; Lego; Rings; Spiderman; Shark tooth; Pocket knife; Watches; Sunglasses; Headphones; Toy snake; Flute; Army stuff; Cellphone; Remote control; USB stick; Toy guns; Stuffed fox.”

— “Bring as many items as possible from the wish list!”, states the invitation card.

Coopman’s artworks are mainly made of wood. His great fascination with certain everyday objects, weapons, toys, and games is reflected both in the things he collects and in the objects he makes. The latter range from smaller items, such as finger rings and wristwatches, little storage boxes, pairs of glasses, cameras, or binoculars, to guns (some functioning, others not), musical instruments, or larger objects, such as wall cupboards or even a pinball table. In the Pump & Dump showroom, the display method of items of both categories — collected or manufactured by Coopman, seems to be democratised: Artworks of Coopman are displayed in the same way as the featured treasures from his collection.

Flanked by his partners, Tony Coopman stands behind the counter of his shop. He welcomes incoming visitors friendly, keen and curious to know what they bring in. Articles get laid out on the counter in front of him and his team, or handed over directly. Coopman takes his time to examine the goods. If interested in having something — which is most often the case, whether or not customers conform to his wish list — he invites them to spin the COOPCOIN wheel of fortune. This element of gambling, introduced as part of the Pump & Dump business strategy, determines by chance how many COOPCOINS a customer gets in return for articles brought in. COOPCOIN, a made-up currency, can be used exclusively for purchases at the Pump & Dump shop, which — supposedly — has plenty on offer: Several of the objects on display carry price tags; and a price list featuring all items ‘for sale’ is available at the counter.

But, consulting the list, customers realise soon that the COOPCOINS obtained — even through multiple items and spins of the wheel — hardly add up to a sum that gives a wide choice at all. Easily attainable, with a bit of luck, are only: A home-burned CD of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack (20 CC^[1]) — which can be considered a ‘souvenir’ from the shop, as this music is likely to be playing during one’s visit; Or the so-called Mysteryboxes (15 CC), stacked in a corner of the room, bearing the branding of well-known retail platforms.

“Low on coins? Surprise yourself with a Mysterybox!” states their advertisement. — ‘Surprise!’ A transparent storage box that contains an empty bag of Lays (Heinz tomato ketchup flavoured) crisps, with a shred of textile wrapped around it as a bow/ Or — Surprise!: A plastic cylinder/ A printout of a still from the latest Coppola film on a used-looking plastic piece of unclear origin/ A wooden letter (‘H’) with screenshots of YouTube videos glued onto it/… — The odd, tinkered contents of the Mysteryboxes consist of small objets trouvés, made into assemblages: Sketch-like items, quickly put together, from the cosmos of Henri Cuelenaere’s studio. (Cuelenaere: the ‘C’ in CVL Partners.)

The invitation to the Pump & Dump exhibition promises the following: “Bring an item from the wish list (…) and trade it for COOPCOIN. The more COOPCOINS you gather, the greater your chance of buying an artwork by Coopman CVL Partners.” However, anyone hoping to acquire work by chief Tony Coopman – handcrafted, inspired by everyday objects and mostly made of wood, will most likely be disappointed. With the prices set to remain out of reach, one might think: It’s a scam! … And yes — it is. But, unlike the contents of the Mysteryboxes, this should come as no surprise.

The CVL partners openly admit that their way of working is inspired by fraud techniques, revealing this already through the naming of their project: ‘Pump & Dump’ (P&D) is a form of securities fraud in which a company’s shares are artificially inflated (‘pump’) and then resold at a higher price (‘dump’). — “The idea is … we’re basically scamming people.”, says C; VL (Lenja Van Laeken, the second partner) adds: “Tony is always looking to get new stuff. And he does not really want to give anything away.”

“Hey Tony Coopman, what’s the importance of doing this exhibition?” The answer comes quick like a shot: “It’s the shop.” (Pause, Coopman thinks) … “It’s for trading, for exchange.” (Thinks again) … “They get money.” — ‘They’ are the customers, ‘money’ is COOPCOIN, is nothing but printed paper.

One day, two customers arrive with a large array of small items. When asked how many times they would get to spin the wheel, Tony Coopman replies impromptu: “20!” Due to this spontaneous generosity, the clients end up with enough coins to acquire a wooden gun, made by hand by Tony Coopman. — This outcome is not only exceptional at the Pump & Dump shop, but ought to be prevented. Tony Coopman’s archive at Kunstwerkplaats De Zandberg has an eye on preserving his work and does not approve of giving too much of it away at the Pump & Dump store.

And usually, Tony Coopman wants to hold on to his things anyway. But sometimes, his spontaneity and the promise of something that he wants to get can prevail and cause him to deviate from this for a moment. Then, his partners intervene. One function of their role at the shop seems to be that of guards, making sure that Coopman’s works — ostensibly on offer, are not actually purchased. C (Henri Cuelenaere) has his own special tactic to ensure this. With the Mysteryboxes, he happily gives away things which he produced himself, instead of those of Tony Coopman. “It’s a win-win situation.” explains C. “Tony wants to keep his stuff. And I want to put mine out there. In this sense, I use our system for my own interest — scam it if you will.” — By signing the affordable Mysteryboxes with his full name, Cuelenaere, (‘C’) who often takes up ideas around the dynamics of commerce in his artistic projects, uses the shop to distribute and promote his own work.

“And, Tony Coopman, what do you sell in your shop?” Coopman thinks, replies: “This and that.” (Thinks again) “A little bit of everything.” This vague answer is actually quite accurate, in the sense that offering their own product is not the focus of this shop. Selling is — (not so) secretly — rather secondary to their endeavour.

“To get the most value for your items, come to the shop between 10:00 and 14:45!”, reads a post of the team on social media. Attributing ‘most value’ to meeting the three on site, as this post does, indicates that the main focus of their business is on exchange — not just in the material sense, but meaning encounter and interaction between people.

When they are on site, the members of the Coopman and CVL Partners group hang around behind the counter or arrange things in the showroom; they receive goods, chat with customers and each other, listen to music, eat lunch together, play, take photos with a small digital camera, work out new ideas, develop items, and talk business. On the pinboard at the checkout, next to keys, receipts, various flyers and scraps of notes, hangs a framed, family business-type photograph of the team. From time to time, Coopman will pick up one of the several toy guns he keeps around to play-threaten (either his partners, or) people on the other side of the counter. It’s a joke that never gets old in this shop, and might serve as an image to illustrate its concept: Hands up! Give me your stuff — if you want.

“Tony, are you going to make artwork from the stuff you get in the store?” (He shrugs.) “Yeah, it’s possible.” (Pause, he seems to be hesitating.) “But with some things it’s not possible: For example, with the gun you can’t make art.” (He points at a particularly large, realistic-looking plastic firearm next to him, which he was very happy about receiving the other day — reconsiders, then confirms:) “No, no possibility with the gun!”

Whether or not items he receives at the store qualify as material for artwork seems secondary to Coopman. VL says: “I don’t know whether Tony would call himself an artist.” Some of her colleagues at De Zandberg, she explains, were a bit doubtful about the Pump & Dump concept, about feeding into Tony Coopman’s seemingly insatiable wish to collect and accumulate more and more things, worrying that it could distract him from making things in his studio. VL: “But I think that's part of who he is and what he does. Tony likes to get things. And he never stops seeing value in things that are not precious per se.”

Through this commonality — recognising value in banal-seeming, small, mundane or apparently meritless objects — Tony’s way of collecting blurs into his approach to artistic work. In this way, the project is starting from acknowledging the sum of Coopman’s interests. Embodying a processual approach to exhibition making, holding ambiguities and open questions, it incidentally raises a basic question about the making of art to which there is no clear-cut answer: Where does one’s artistic work start and end?

Further lines obliterate within the project, questions arise and stay open: What is the artwork here? — Is it the store/ the objects, (& whose?); Is it a performance when the team is on site?; Who is the author?; How are the roles in the collective divided?; Is Tony Coopman ‘the boss’? – “He surely knows how to employ people to do things for him!” … “Skilfully and determined as he is when he wants something.”, describe C and VL who both know Coopman well from working together with him at Kunstwerkplaats De Zandberg. Maybe he is ‘the boss’, getting his way with the shop. Or perhaps, like in a law firm, the unnamed partners hold more power than their subordinate mentioning indicates. Maybe, this is both true at the same time and it’s all about “continuously learning from each other”, as C describes working with Tony Coopman.

(1) Short for COOPCOIN

About Emilia Keller

Emilia Keller (she/her) holds an M.F.A. from the Academy of Fine Arts (HFBK) Hamburg, where she specialised in time-based media and film. Her work predominantly revolves around text and the moving image, often manifesting as fragmented collages. She has a deep interest in language and writing and their intersections with visual and sensory arts. Currently, she is participating in the Curatorial Studies postgraduate program at KASK in Ghent.