Page 118 - The 70s - ABC of the material

The works are accompanied by a text in which is described
THE ALARM CLOCK AND THE accurately what has been done with pencil, paper, cloth

CHARCOAL, OR ….. or oil pastel, and why. These texts originate from the
book Maria van Elk drawing 1973-1980 which serves
“Drawing 1973-1980 Maria van Elk” as a catalogue. This catalogue was written by Coosje van
Bruggen, an art historian, who managed in her usage of
Being an artist prevails for Maria van Elk. Therefore she words to make a perfect parallel between text and art.
consented to a picture of her work instead of one of her Nor in the drawings, nor in the text you will find
face. For this artist the personal background is of no ambiguities, references or metaphors. No lively stories,
consequence whereas in the work exhibited there is also no emotional
handling of paint. Here a logical thinker comes into it's
Maria van Elk has, for the sake of clarity, indicated the own, who will immediately be confronted with a direct
start and end time on her Five Minutes Drawing. With that attack on this logic, but more about this later.
she has made visible the element of time, which is seldom
verifiable in an piece of art, namely the time it took to The flat surface
make it. First of all there is the flat surface. A surface that is totally
different from a surface that carries a perspectival image of
She set her alarm clock and started with charcoal to make something. Of a landscape for instance, invoked to us as if
rubbing movements on paper. Down, up and down again one looks outside through a window, a phenomenon that is
until 5 minutes passed. She repeated these movements called illusionary.
with conté, with pencil and finally with indian ink. Four Maria van Elk says about this “there are two ways to look.
time-drawings of which the first covers almost the whole The acquired way is one of them: looking is immediately
surface, while the last one covers only a minimal column. translated in depth. If something is depicted smaller it must
be further away.
“One-time you draw fast, and another time you draw slow, However you can also “translate” a diminution as
you can of course steer this to a certain extent. But as an something that is indeed smaller than something larger, but
idea, as concept, I found it interesting that each material in the same plane. Illusionary watching hinders a certain
has its own time, because that is the essence of it”. way of observation”.
Not an image of reality, but the reality of the material.
Until April the 6th the “Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam” Material that determines form and composition.
shows a retrospective of the work of Maria van Elk, born “Looking back I think: I probably have a great sense of
in Amsterdam. This retrospective is called “Drawing” and ownership. I find it difficult to annex things that are not
not, as would be more obvious, “Drawings”. It is the act, mine. When you paint a landscape you annex something.
dealing with pencil and paper, that matters in her work; You size things in a way.
the importance of the result is directly related to how
the act is expressed. Thinking, and the material form of Often I find this pretentious. I find a lot of art extremely
thinking coincide. In two halls of the Stedelijk Museum pretentious and gross because of that. What I do is to
monumental oil pastel paintings are shown alternately show what is the property of the material.Let it keep its
with subtle pencil drawings. The thread that runs through value, or actually amplify it. It originates, I think, from a
this work can be reduced to two aspects: strong sense of anatomy”.
a. working with the properties of the materials used
b. playing with geometrical forms Lithographs
With these 2 points this is a subdued affair if you want The series of lithographs (see picture on page 89) are a
to compare it with the exuberant paintings of the young good example of this. Maria van Elk printed circles on
Italians who exhibited in the same hall previously. The sheets of paper which she wrinkled and folded before.
wealth of Van Elks' drawings is more subtle and this After printing the circles the creases were flattened and
stands out only after you look attentively. what remained visible was an disrupted or crumbled

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