Already at the start of his career, Boezem bids farewell to the traditional, craft-based views on art and begins creating works that are close to real life. He deliberately uses non-artistic materials and strives to bring visual art outside the walls of the museum. Boezem often sells his works only as an idea on paper, which is only realized later in the exhibition space.
The Shows
The Shows, a series of fifteen drawings made between 1964 and 1969, are typical of Boezem’s early period and of the conceptual character of his work. They are design sketches for exhibition projects that can be realized to order. Boezem makes a stencilled version of the Shows in editions of fifty or a hundred copies, which he sends to his contacts in the art world, or sells to people himself by visiting the various institutions with the drawings in a briefcase, as a kind of travelling salesman.
Air and wind
For many of the Shows, Boezem uses air and wind as a material, such as in the inflatable Luchtplastiek (Air sculpture, Show X, 1967) or the Soft Room (Show XV, 1968) where fans cause the cloths on the tables to billow up. In many of the Shows, the visitors are part of the work: they walk through the warm and cold air currents of Immateriële ruimte (Immaterial space, Show V, 1965) or enter the Gordijnenkamer (Curtain room, Show IX, 1965) in which the walls of cloth ‘flutter’. Or the visitors act as co-performers: they blow air with the aerosols of Picturale illusies (Pictorial illusions, Show III, 1964-1965) or turn the Wentelpaneel (Revolving panel, Show VII, 1965) and thereby move the air in the room.
Some of the fifteen Shows have previously been fully or partially realized. Now, for the first time, all fifteen are realized simultaneously at the Kröller-Müller.
Boezem friends
‘Boezem friends’ are present in the rooms to receive the visitors and guide them through the exhibition. They know all about Marinus Boezem and the Shows and always enjoy a thought-provoking question or a good conversation. They are easily identified by their key cord and facemask and, of course, they keep a safe distance.
Book and film
The exhibition Marinus Boezem. All Shows is accompanied by a book with the same title (€ 19,95), with Marinus Boezem’s original texts for the Shows and an introduction by Frans Jozef Witteveen. The book also contains images of the drawings for the Shows and photographs of the works realized in the Kröller-Müller Museum.
A limited part of the edition includes a hand-held fan signed by Marinus Boezem and with the inscription GOD BLESS YOU (€ 49,95).
The publication and the limited editions including hand-held are available in the museum shop (and in the webshop).
On the occasion of the exhibition, filmmaker Paul Kramer and cameraman Martijn Tervoort made the film Show me Marinus Boezem. This film is a portrait of Marinus Boezem and also documents the realization of the exhibition. The film can be viewed in the museum, on this website and on our YouTube channel.
