Visual research

Description

'Visual research' is an installation by the Dutch artist Marinus Boezem. A framework with a central slat but no canvas stretched on it is set up diagonally against the wall. The interior dimensions of the framework are indicated with lines, arrows and figures on the wall. A spotlight on a stand illuminates the framework diagonally from the front, so that there is a strong shadow on the wall.

In this installation the sizes of the framework are shown in three different ways. In the first place, there is the framework itself, concrete and tangible. Secondly, there is a representation in abstract symbols, by showing the sizes on the wall, and thirdly, there is the shadow which produces a distorted and immaterial version of the framework. Marinus Boezem was active as a conceptual artist from the 1960s. For him the idea of an artwork always had central place. The form he chose was produced by the idea. Like many artists in the 1960s, Boezem chose non-traditional methods for the execution of his work, such as sky, light and vegetation. In this respect his work is related to that of Zero and Arte Povera. His works were often changeable and transient. Boezem wanted to raise the artwork for discussion as a permanent and tangible object. Contrasting concepts such as visible and invisible, nature and culture, the object-like character and the context were often united within one work.

In 'Visual research' Boezem worked with the concepts of material and immaterial, permanence (the framework) and temporary (the shadow), concrete and abstract. In addition he looked at the principle of the exact and objective concepts of size in a relative way. By setting the framework up diagonally the height does not correspond to the size shown on the wall. The shadow of the framework has very different sizes, even a different shape from the thing itself. On the one hand, Boezem refers to traditional painting in which perspective and the effect of shadows are carefully constructed; on the other hand, he does not actually present a painting. On the contrary, there is no canvas, there is only a frame without a canvas. The relative nature of traditions, the almost literal removal of art from its framework or plinth in this installation, is characteristic of Boezem’s work.

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