Page 50 - Studio International - June 1971

Dutch artists the first programmes and showed two films by Sculpture, phase z: perspiration,
phase 2: goose flesh.
artists : Painting I by Jan Dibbets and Pulling
on television mouth by Bruce Nauman. For the second and As the title indicates, Van Elk exposes his own
body, first to exemplify the most essential
third programme special commissions were
given to four Dutch artists, each with some aspect of painting—colour—and of sculpture—
Carel Blotkamp experience in film making: Boezem participated texture. The interview that preceded the
in Land Art, Stanley Brouwn in Identifications, transmission of the film rivalled Andy Warhol's
both films directed by Gerry Schum for German famous interview which consisted of nothing but
television, while Ger van Elk and Peter denials; to all questions about his work Van Elk
Struycken both worked independently in film for reacted with bewildered looks, denials and
some years. Preceding the four commissioned laughter. Only finally did he say that in his
films there were short but in general very film the atmospheric circumstances act as
Boezom
Breathing on a glass plate between himself and the lens it illuminating interviews with the artists, except creators to which he offers his body as material.
dims 21 Feb. 1971 in the case of Brouwn, who preferred to remain Ger van Elk's strange and fascinating
Dutch Television anonymous. By way of an introduction he had investigations in the borderland of painting and
Photo: Joes Odufré
some of his texts read by a woman announcer. sculpture had earlier led him to combine film
2 Ger van Elk Unlike Gerry Schum in his films Land Art and projection and objects.
Painting phase z — pale 21 Feb. 1971
Dutch Television Indentifications, Frans Haks did not try to
Photo courtesy art & project, Amsterdam suggest more kinship between the participating Peter Struycken : Differences in structure in place
3 Ger van Elk artists than their common use of the camera. and time.
Rehearsal of pale phase 2 - red 21 Feb. 1971 They were, in fact, chosen to make it clear that The film gives in a double image two identical
Dutch Television the differences in their work also implied structures; the image on the left is static and
Photo: Joes Odufré
different attitudes to film-making. gives a total view, that on the right changes every
4 Ger van Elk half second or holds for a second or more,
Sculpture phase z — perspiration 21 Feb. 1971
Dutch Television Boezem: Breathing on the tube according to the programme, and gives the total
Photo courtesy art & project, Amsterdam The film shows Boezem looking straight at the view only in a certain length of time. It is clear
5 Ger van Elk camera for quite a time and then suddenly that Struycken is interested not so much in
Sculpture phase 2 — goose-flesh 21 Feb. 1971 breathing so violently on a glass plate between structures as such as in the experience and
Dutch Television himself and the lens that it dims; only very interpretation of change, both within one
Photo courtesy art & project, Amsterdam
slowly does his image become clearly visible structure and from one structure into another.
6 & 7 Peter Struyken once more. As the title implies, it suggests that In his work of the last three years, paintings,
Differences in structure in place and time
Dutch Television the tube itself gets dim as if the performer were programmed light works and films, he has used
Photo: Joes Odufré inside the television set, as children once a computer because it offers a vast number of
believed. Boezem's work is often based on such alternative possibilities from which the artist can
realism; for years he has been fascinated by the choose the ones that best serve his purpose.
elements, but whereas Yves Klein, for example,
with an almost religious intensity used fire, water In these four works, television has been used in
and air as cosmic forces, Boezem usually limits different ways : as a means to isolate a small
himself to presenting very drily information event, one movement, from daily life and to load
About fifteen years ago a Dutch non-profit about nature's effects on daily life: the weather- it with extra meaning (Brouwn); as a kind of living
organization called Openbaar Kunstbezit (Public forecast for September 26, 1968; the percentage photo-report on the human body under varying
Collections) started putting out educational of moisture in a given room. circumstances (van Elk); as a way of comparing
radio programmes on art. Every week art changes in time with changes in place
historians, critics and occasionally artists Stanley Brouwn: One Step (Struycken); and finally as a means to bring
discussed works of art of all periods and kinds in This is a development of his contribution to about a pseudo-direct effect in the television set
public collections in the Netherlands. Identifications. Handling the camera himself; itself (Boezem).
Subscribers to the series (a fairly constant Brouwn has taken a very long shot of a square in Existing films by Dibbets and Nauman
100,000 people) received reproductions of works the centre of Amsterdam and moved just one usefully complemented these four. In Nauman's
discussed and texts of the comments on them. step while he was taking it; the movement is Pulling mouth, slow motion gives an almost
Some years later Openbaar Kunstbezit also noticeable only as a slight quivering of the image. abstract quality to the image of the face of the
began to relay television programmes, mostly in With this new film he has given the tiny event artist. In Jan Dibbet's Painting I, there is an
series of three or four interlinked programmes, even more weight by way of repeating that one intriguing dualism of two- and three-
on such varied subjects as mediaeval pottery or step on the same place at the very moment that dimensionality. One sees red-stockinged legs
the Bauhaus. he was watching the transmission on a portable against a lawn; they walk away from the
Last February, however, a series with the title set. No photographic record of the film can give camera, but though their diminishing size
Artists make television was transmitted during any information about the effect. Brouwn's suggests depth, the painterly flatness is kept
three consecutive weeks. As Openbaar private activities in urban life (some of which, intact and the whole surface is covered with
Kunstbezit programmes go out not on weekday for example, were carried out with the aid of green grass, against which the legs move slowly
nights reserved for 'culture', but on Sunday passers-by who showed him on paper the right like red-coloured accents.
afternoons, the unsuspecting public watching way to a certain place he had asked for, resulting The quality of each of the films was on a high
the world skating or cycling championships was in the so-called This-way-Brouwn's) date back to level, as was the series of three programmes as a
suddenly confronted with extraordinary pieces the early sixties, when he participated in Fluxus whole: it offered an excellent insight into the -
such as Painting I by Jan Dibbets or One Step activities. He is an artist whose importance has present use of television by artists, and in doing
by Stanley Brouwn. The educational purpose of become clearer through recent developments in so proved an exception to the generally poor
the programme, nevertheless, was not art. achievements of Dutch television in the field of
disregarded. Frans Haks, who devised the informative programmes on contemporary
series, introduced the artist as a film-maker in Ger van Elk: Painting, phase z: pale, phase 2: red. culture. q
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