Robert Broekhuis, Black Box (Dinner With Magritte, 2018
MDF, ceramic dish, knife and fork, LED light, charcoal and paper 19x32x12 cm, 2018
Robert Broekhuis, Black Box (Collateral Beauty), 2019
MDF, hare skull, cloth, salt, LED light 19x32x12 cm
Robert Broekhuis
Robert Broekhuis’s work is tranquil emotion, reduced to the minimum. He considers his work an investigation into the anatomy of silence.
Beauty, violence and loss enter into a paradoxical relationship in his recent work. In his 2019 exhibition Black Box / Green Grass (with Maurice van Tellingen), Brpekhuis explores the bizarre miracle that trauma can, after years of speechlessness, lead to what he calls the collateral beauty of a new visual language, which he also then had to master. The works from the BLACK BOX series can be regarded as sculptural metaphors, while his piece, Gedanken über Isaac Newton is a play about lightness and the absurd and shows his zest for life. Larissa Kikol, art critic at Die Zeit and Kunstforum, recently wrote of his work (in the forthcoming book on Broekhuis) that it is based on two points of view: the abstract story and the story that is hidden behind an abstract image. She notes an affinity with the Arte Povera movement, not to focus on the poverty of the materials, but rather to emphasize the meaning of their reality and how they direct a pictorial story. That is why he uses materials as burnt wood, broken glass, salt, lead and tar.
Beauty, violence and loss enter into a paradoxical relationship in his recent work. In his 2019 exhibition Black Box / Green Grass (with Maurice van Tellingen), Brpekhuis explores the bizarre miracle that trauma can, after years of speechlessness, lead to what he calls the collateral beauty of a new visual language, which he also then had to master. The works from the BLACK BOX series can be regarded as sculptural metaphors, while his piece, Gedanken über Isaac Newton is a play about lightness and the absurd and shows his zest for life. Larissa Kikol, art critic at Die Zeit and Kunstforum, recently wrote of his work (in the forthcoming book on Broekhuis) that it is based on two points of view: the abstract story and the story that is hidden behind an abstract image. She notes an affinity with the Arte Povera movement, not to focus on the poverty of the materials, but rather to emphasize the meaning of their reality and how they direct a pictorial story. That is why he uses materials as burnt wood, broken glass, salt, lead and tar.