Page 63 - 1968 ... 2013 Soft Living Room

SOFT LIVING ROOM (SLR) Aftenasis, of 18 June 1969, about the Biennale de Tapis-

serie in Lausanne. He was particularly enthusiastic about
The Drifting Journey of an Orphaned Artwork, the contribution of Maria van Elk to the then important
1968 - 2013 exhibition of modern textile art.

Elbrig de Groot In a letter, dated 20.10.68, Maria van Elk accepted the
invitation from ‘Lausanne’ and described her proposed
The Soft Living Room by Maria van Elk, from 1968, contribution as ‘an environment in the shape of a soft
is a key work in her oeuvre, a link between the bright living room’. She laid the work out, point by point.
colours of the textile collages and the focus on the line. After seeing a scale model, the chairman of the selec-
The environment also marks an era whose echoes are tion committee, Pierre Paul, invited her to show the Soft
still heard, today. Living Room (letter 5.12.68). Thanks to the recommen-
dations of Benno Premsela (1920-1997), interior designer
The SLR left behind a colourful past that took place in and forthright advocate of the Avant Garde, and of
the boundless sixties, and announced greater stillness Herman Swart (1911-1992), the then remarkable director
in her work or the ‘emancipation of the material,’ as of the Dutch Art Foundation, Maria van Elk was enabled
said by Maria van Elk. She set out to make art without to take part in the 4 International Textile Biannual of
th
a pedestal, to reduce the distance between art and Lausanne in 1969, on behalf of the Netherlands (letters,
public. 18.12.68 and 20.12.68). The work was transported in
However, how-to-interact with the work was not parts and reconstructed on location by her then husband,
correctly understood by all. The Soft Living Room Lysander Apol, and his friend Art van Westerop.
entered the art world as a pioneering environment, but
was also used as a hangout by lunching construction Hat designer Art van Westerop had also assisted her
workers and as an educational object. After a few years with preparations for the SLR. Maria once received two,
it disappeared from sight. far-too-posh hats from Art, which he had made while
working for Yves Saint Laurent, and the pair danced about
The roaming journey of the orphaned Soft Living with a Persian rug held high above their heads while Bas
Room is symbolic of many other artworks that after Jan Ader, watching complacently, rolled cigarettes as thin
‘use’, misunderstood and without context, are stored as matches. It is a characteristic image of the carefree
and consequently forgotten. Together with the artist I atmosphere at that time.
began a search for the movements and fate of the SLR.
Despite Bauhaus, Dada and Surrealism in the inter-war
Of the work, only a few black-and-white photographs, period, the partitions between the different disciplines
stories, letters and reviews remained - distant glimpses of were raised firmly after the Second World War. Within
a lost work of art. Together, these fragmentary documents the museums existed different departments. Visual arts
barley sketched an image of the Soft Living Room. Maria and applied arts were strictly separated. Everything that
van Elk spoke of it with both enthusiasm and sadness. It was neither painting nor sculpture was classified as applied
was clearly a cherished work for her, but untraceable. art. This was done based on the material used. Textile
belonged undoubtedly to the applied arts and was, above
What appealed most to the imagination was a striking all, the domain of women. In the sixties, many barriers
portrait of then 26-year-old Maria, posing confidently were broken, but in the art world the attitudes, with some
in the Soft Living Room, whereby the scale of the work exceptions, remained traditional.
becomes clearer. It made me more and more curious. The
black-and-white photograph is by the Danish photog- The choice by Maria van Elk for textiles as a medium was
rapher Erling Mandelmann and illustrates a review born out of necessity. She had no money to buy paint or to
by Virtus Schade in the Danish newspaper Berlinske rent an atelier, so she ‘painted’ with textile. Since collage

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