Ger van Elk 1941–2014

By Bart van der Heide

The influence of Dutch artist Ger van Elk on the burgeoning stages of conceptual art in the 1960s remains undisputed. In 2009 van Elk, who passed away on 17 August 2014, was awarded a prominent position in the exhibition ‘In & Out of Amsterdam’ at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which was dedicated to the European pioneers of this international art movement.

Van Elk was an active member of ‘Art and Project’ – the influential bulletin issued by the eponymous gallery – between 1970 and 1987, participated in three Documentas (numbers 5, 6 and 7), and represented The Netherlands at the Venice Biennial in 1980. His work has been collected from early on by major institutional collections, after its inclusion in the influential exhibitions ‘Op Losse Schoeven’ at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum in 1968, and ‘When Attitudes become Form’ at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1969.

Ger van Elk, The Symmetry of Diplomacy (Portrait), 1971 However, van Elk never chose the obvious approach. While developing close bonds with artists such as Jan Dibbets, John Baldessari, Gilbert and George, or Piero Gilardi, he never committed either to a close friendship or to one of the dominant styles they were associated with. Instead, he favoured the position of critical observer and, sometimes, provocateur. He fluidly incorporated elements from Arte Povera, Pop Art, Fluxus or Minimal Art into his work. On top of that, he embraced classical media and art historical themes, exactly when many of his contemporaries saw renouncing tradition as the only possible way forward. This made separation an inherent part of van Elk’s career, both professionally as well as personally, which may even have contributed to his virtual disappearance from the international art market over the last two decades. Looking back at van Elk’s oeuvre, one could even go as far as saying that separation and parting company, beyond the merely anecdotal, became a conceptual and aesthetic conviction.

To start with, Ger van Elk separated subject matter from its artistic representation. For him, the depiction of truth was inherently unreliable: the more realistic an image appeared, the greater the lie. Hence, from an early stage in his career he anticipated the postmodern understanding of images as political, moral, intellectual and emotional constructions. As a result the artworks of van Elk celebrate artificiality and become a critical investigation into their own deceptive qualities.

Ger van Elk, The Adieu. 1974. Gouache and ink on colour photograph (in irregular quadrilateral frame), 132 × 84 cm, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

The starting point of van Elk’s artworks are often autobiographical, using documentary photography, film and self-portraiture as templates. Yet subject matter is neutralised, and the influence of artist intention on a work’s meaning is diminished as well. Take, for example The Adieu (1974). A series of different photographs shows the artist himself waving goodbye to his audience. Each of the photographs is hand-painted and drawn upon, and set in oddly shaped frames, creating the optical illusion that one was looking at the work from an extreme angle. In the centre of the image stands an easel supporting a canvas, depicted in a similarly extreme, yet differently tilted angle. On the canvas, the waving artist appears on a tree-lined country road, similar to the ones appearing in 17th century Dutch landscape paintings. Behind the canvas, a heavy dark curtain is half-opened to reveal a monochrome background, or a suggestion of a clouded sky. The title of the work, already a linguistic construction of two languages, still suggests the subject of the artist’s depiction, but in the final outcome of the work, this is overruled by the extravagantly elaborated composition; accordingly the work itself claims sovereignty.

In his recent series of painted photographs, entitled ‘Conclusion’, a sort of portrait of the artist is similarly taken as a conceptual starting point, yet here this aspect is both thematically and visually made opaque. The base of a ‘Conclusion’ is a photograph of a site that bares a special memory for van Elk. This photograph is printed on canvas and stretched over a thick frame. In the finished work the remnants of this image can only be seen on the sides of the canvas, as the front side of the picture is concealed behind monochrome layers of paint. Hence, these works continue van Elk’s incorporation of perspective deformations, because each ‘Conclusion’ is shaped by the angle in which it can be observed to the full.

Echoing a tradition going back to Marcel Duchamp, the shift of perspectives that consistently reoccur in van Elk’s oeuvre symbolise an artist stepping back in order to leave a space for the spectator to enter. The introduction of a variety of stand points (either towards his own work or to the historical references he sources from) can in this light be seen as his rejection of a singular point of view. But van Elk has shown us that referencing, outsourcing or commenting alone are not enough to question authenticity. The blunt artificiality of his works underline the role a work of art plays in engaging the visitor’s attention. Experiencing an artwork by van Elk is most of all a visual play of seduction and curiosity. In doing so van Elk provides an important model for a young generation of artists dealing with authenticity in today’s image production.

Ger van Elk, The Missing Persons, Conversation Piece, 1976. Coloured photograph, 106 × 124 cm. Collection Nigel P. Greenwood, London.

Yet continuing Duchamp, the disappearance of an autobiographic subject does not mean invisibility. In his retouched photograph The Missing Persons, Conversation Piece (1976) for instance, a speaking person is erased within a conversing group. Despite his absence, the group is still looking at him. Similarly, Ger van Elk will continue to engage us even after his death, as long as we take the time to look at his work. However, for myself as an admirer who has been continuously influenced by van Elk, the ultimate realisation of his Adieu would ideally have been postponed as far as possible. With his passing, the world says goodbye to one of the most prolific, creative, courageous and stubborn geniuses of his generation.

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