Page 20 - Floors AZU

Independence and attitude During the sixties I
have experimented a lot. An environment, that I
made in 1967, had to do with social involvement.
The threshold between art and public had to be
demolished, people could sit inside. It was some Maria van Elk, “Scale 1:1” forms of folding, oil paint stick on paper, 65 x 65 cm, 1986
sort of meditation room, completely in soft black
and white material. This was an enormous work for
which I got a subsidy. This was completely beyond
my control. Problems with transportation, storage
and also with the concept. For me it was about the
reality of art, an intermediate between something
that is an illusion and that what is tangible. It was
also a step in the direction of the public. But the
physical experience it produced turned out in their
reactions into vulgar erotical frolic, whereas I had
been looking for stillness. Moreover, when you
work on this scale you need a large atelier and lots
of money for materials. You develop an enormous
dependence on money, space, museums, civil
servants, people. Of anything and everything. I am
allergic to dependence. After this experience it was
finished for me. The social relevance of art, which
was by now a claim, bothered me. I quit for a while
and preferred to study philosophy. Then I divorced
and had to earn money all of a sudden. This was
in 1972. I had to think seriously. If I had to go back
making art it would be absolutely only on my own
terms. Then I decided to reason only from what
interested me, that which I could comprehend.
Physically as well as financially, mentally and
emotionally. I was indifferent to the question
whether it was art or not. The environment was
bought by the city of Amsterdam and I could use
the art subsidy arrangement (BKR) to start anew.
From 1974 on I have worked entirely independent.
I teach, first as a guest teacher at the Rietveld
Academy, and from 1975 on at the AKI, Enschede.
At this academy I am coordinator of the
department Mixed Media, which I set up myself. photography Ferry André de la Porte
From detail to whole From 1973 on my work can about society and my position in it. From the detail * ) thanks to Astrid Roemer, “Why should you cry my
be described as work with fundamental, concrete to the whole, from the specific to the general. dear, dear ....” (Waarom zou je huilen mijn lieve, lieve....),
and visual properties of drawing-materials. Until Or, in other words, from the development of the Conservé’s Novel Series No. 5, 1987 (1976), p. 7.
recently on a modest scale. The isolation at the individual and from there to the common interest.
atelier played a role in the way these drawings How can, when the individual does not function,
were made. I have isolated details and brought the general function? My development is a careful
them back again to independence. In those years conquest of independence and with that the
I have become aware very much of the concept freedom to accomplish also assignments on a large
of independence of myself and also of the visual scale for the common interest. Because, when the
elements. Actually, the development of my work concept – the beginning – is there, I will bring it to
runs parallel with the development of my thinking a successful conclusion.

ARTICLE: INTERVIEW JETTEKE BOLTEN REMT AND MARIA VAN ELK | 1988

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