Page 52 - The 70s - ABC of the material

Quotes from a correspondence between Martien de Voigt and Maria van Elk (2013)

A number of contacts with my wife Ann, myself and Maria van Elk followed. Beginning with a visit,
July 2012, to the Van Abbemuseum to look at the work Enlargement ↔ Reduction and to discuss
the treatment of this work by the museum staff.
At the end of that year we met her at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam where her work Loose one's
Balance (1986), after a donation by her, was shown.

She writes me thereon as follows:
“What about writing a book together about the “physical basis” of a number of my works such
as Enlargement ↔ Reduction, Two straight lines of which one is always crooked, Topological
Symmetry and Loose one's Balance. I am afraid that this aspect in my work will otherwise be lost
totally because art professionals are not curious for this”.
I wrote back that the Topology lies more in the region of mathematics than in the region of physics.
Thereon Maria continued to organise her archive.

Then she writes me as follows:
“I will try to write it down. Firstly I have made a development from working according to an
example (figurative) towards concrete, the material itself and all the exciting things that are hidden
within it. This runs parallel with my own development as a human, from imitation (after an example)
to independence. Independence creates the freedom to make discoveries”.

I answer her as follows:
“At home I immediately consulted my summary of the conversations with Ann and the result goes
herewith. As with you Maria this cannot wait and I am curious what I can expect from you about
your development. I have tried to pick the most essential out of it and to write it down as concisely
as possible. Thereby I find it important that each keyword gets a deeper meaning and that each
sentence contains one or more keywords. That is what I demand from myself because it concerns
your essence !!!!“.

Here is that summary, Martien de Voigt:
Maria van Elk investigates the area where images lie enclosed in the material and as such
are subordinate and unimportant.
As soon as the details shift however and become subject, a new visual independence
arises.
One sees that what one has not seen (Hardness of pencil).
Her work is concrete with sometimes magnificent contradictions

The asymmetrical symmetry is emphasised in her topological works.
A straight line on a curved surface becomes crooked and straight as in Two straight lines of
which one is always crooked. A drawn form takes, in relation to the material, another form
than drawn.
Cause and effect are reversible as arises from Enlargement ↔ Reduction.
The inside becomes the outside and the outside becomes the inside as in Inside out Circles.
With the drawn time and the solidified visible movement the condensed action becomes
visible and blurs the difference between thinking and acting as in 5 Minutes Drawing. With
these the property of the material is an essential topic.

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