LINDA VAN BOVEN SOLO EXHIBITIONIN OLST (NETHERLANDS) AND WUPPERTAL (GERMANY)
OLST: 23.01.2005 TILL 25.04.2005 OPENING 23.01.2005 AT 15.00 HOURS
WUPPERTAL: 6.02.2005 TILL 25.04.2005 OPENING 6.02.2005 AT 15.00 HOURS

For a complete list of works and prices contact the gallery.
PRESSRELEASE

Linda van Boven

In these recent works photographs mounted in elongated horizontal format, depict street scenes, piles of rubbish, blooming water lilies, trees and emptied plates, in sequential frames.

In her latest work, Linda van Boven almost imperceptibly makes the viewer accomplice to her perspective. This of course happens with every work that we look at, but something else is also happening here. The work does not reveal itself in the full light of day. We are made accessory to the position of a surreptitious onlooker. Together we peer with the maker at scenes in a twilight domain. This is not due solely to the fact an important number of the photographs have actually been shot in the dark, but also because the photographs penetrate that part of the brain where reason is replaced by associations at a deeper level of consciousness.

In the serial photo sequences we see images of the night. Light glancing off cobblestones, cars driving past, streetlamps and women. Women smoking, waiting, walking, adjusting their clothing. Captured from above, caught, scrutinized. These photographs betray the eye of the voyeur, the curious and interested eye, not only the cold distant eye, but definitely the eye that reaches out to the subject, that is prepared to get under the skin in order to understand.

The photographs are mounted in elongated horizontal strokes. The previously mentioned street scenes are dissected with photographs of piles of rubbish and of blooming water lilies, a brief flowering, of the ephemeral, trees and emptied plates. The water lilies can be read as a metaphor for the transience of flowering and beauty. The plates with chequered gingham motif refer to warmth, intimacy and consolation: food that has just been consumed - the comfort of a full stomach. The hand painted plate motif alludes to homeliness, safety, trust. An interesting aspect of this way of working is that the sequences make a story possible. Not a story imposed by the maker, but rather one that is created by each viewer who can read their own story from the composite images.

Van Boven edits her photographs almost as you would a film and it is easy to imagine this sequence as a film. However it is not the element of time that is particularly important here but rather the springing thoughts and associations that the maker wishes to evoke. The images of nature contrast starkly with the images of the night. Yet the night itself is also not unambiguous in meaning. It can be warm and soft, but also bleak and remorseless for those who seek their livelihood within its confines.

Van Boven’s new work connects closely with her previous work that primarily involved art made for public spaces, such as for instance a tunnel in the Bijlmer (a neighbourhood in Amsterdam), 1997, where a man with a dog is depicted in various stages of running. Passers by actually perceive the movement of the images. Sequences with hand formed shadow images (Vensterpolder 1999). The current work is however also situated in the continuation of the work that she presented at the Florence Lynch gallery, where modelled clay figures enacted scenes from daily life (2001). Thinking in sequences and narrative moments is a recurring element. This work however shows a movement that travels even more in the direction of film. In this work it is not so much the rhythm of movement that is examined, but rather how image elements connect or conflict and in doing so communicate with the public. The abstract colour fields that appeared regularly in previous work seem to have been replaced by images. There is a new dynamic, namely that created by the interaction between the images. You could suggest that Linda van Boven films with photography, inviting us to experience a world where we are forced to investigate the public and private domains in our own way. This takes place through penetrating sequences that reveal their story in an open and silent manner.

Margriet Kruyver