(Delft 1914–1994)
‘R 87–1’, 1987, signed, titled, dated and inscribed on the reverse, Jan J. Schoonhoven, 1987, there with the measurements 42 x 24 cm (x 5.5 cm) cardboard, latex paint, wood, mounted in Plexiglass box

We are grateful to Tijs Visser and Anton Melissen for their scientific assistance and for the kind support in cataloguing this work. They both agree about the originality and authenticity of the work R 87-1 by Jan J. Schoonhoven.

Provenance:
Galerie m, Bochum, directly from the artist
Private Collection, Germany

„Schoonhoven’s Relief is, similar to Rickey’s kinetic sculpture, exemplary for a form of concrete (that is non-mimetic) art, attuned to nature, which incorporates nature itself as the essential realisation of artistic expression and experience. In Rickey’s kinetic sculpture nature is present in the movement of the wind, in Schoonhoven’s Relief nature is present as light. Just like Rickey’s sculpture, as a kinetic instrument, reacts to the ever-changing movement of the wind, thereby drawing attention to it, Schoonhoven’s Relief, as a static, serially-structured instrument, reacts to the light through constantly changing chiaroscuro patterns that could never be represented mimetically as both themselves and their particular variations. It deliberately renders light as being beyond any form of mimesis.“

Max Imdahl, Jan J. Schoonhoven, R74-8, in: Erläuterungen zur Modernen Kunst, ed. by Norbert Kunisch, Bochum 1990, pp. 227–230, here p. 229 f.

Since the early 1980s, Jan Schoonhoven has let himself be influenced by his most immediate surroundings in the generation of ideas for his works – namely, the historical centre of his home town of Delft. Jan Schoonhoven wanders through the town, using his index finger and thumb as a means of framing the image, searching for suitable motifs. He makes note of the canals, the gables of specific houses, the historic house roofs, the smallest details of the town that are of particular interest for him, and the towers and façades that are formed in an unusual manner: all of these are then photographed by his colleague Aad in t‘Veld.
Schoonhoven declares that reliefs such as R 87-1, in their rhythmic and concrete form, accurately come close again to the prototypes of the ZERO artworks. As early as 1965 he himself wrote in „De nieuwe stijl“: „Accepting things as they are and not changing them for personal reasons, making changes only when they are necessary to depict reality more intensively’.
Here ‘intentional’ geometry and the geometry of ‘chance’ meet, in a calculated model that can nonetheless be traced back to „reflections“, to roofs and building fronts, to ripples in water and houses mirrored in canals.
This work exudes „Delft“, even though the direct link to the original has been severed. The relief is a simulacrum, a copy without an original, functioning as an autonomous creation.“

Antoon Melissen, Jan Schoonhoven,
Rotterdam 2015, p. 162

We are grateful to Tijs Visser and Anton Melissen for their scientific assistance and for the kind support to catalogue this work. They both agree in the originality and authenticity of the work R 87-1 by Jan J. Schoonhoven.

Provenance:
Galerie m, Bochum, directly from the artist
Private Collection, Germany

„Schoonhoven’s Relief is, similar to Rickey’s kinetic sculpture, exemplary for a form of concrete (that is non-mimetic) art, attuned to nature, which incorporates nature itself as the essential realisation of artistic expression and experience. In Rickey’s kinetic sculpture nature is present in the movement of the wind, in Schoonhoven’s Relief nature is present as light. Just like Rickey’s sculpture, as a kinetic instrument, reacts to the ever-changing movement of the wind, thereby drawing attention to it, Schoonhoven’s Relief, as a static, serially-structured instrument, reacts to the light through constantly changing chiaroscuro patterns that could never be represented mimetically as both themselves and their particular variations. It deliberately renders light as being beyond any form of mimesis.“

Max Imdahl, Jan J. Schoonhoven, R74-8, in: Erläuterungen zur Modernen Kunst, ed. by Norbert Kunisch, Bochum 1990, pp. 227–230, here p. 229 f.

Since the early 1980s, Jan Schoonhoven has let himself be influenced by his most immediate surroundings in the generation of ideas for his works – namely, the historical centre of his home town of Delft. Jan Schoonhoven wanders through the town, using his index finger and thumb as a means of framing the image, searching for suitable motifs. He makes note of the canals, the gables of specific houses, the historic house roofs, the smallest details of the town that are of particular interest for him, and the towers and façades that are formed in an unusual manner: all of these are then photographed by his colleague Aad in t‘Veld.
Schoonhoven declares that reliefs such as R 87-1, in their rhythmic and concrete form, accurately come close again to the prototypes of the ZERO artworks. As early as 1965 he himself wrote in „De nieuwe stijl“: „Accepting things as they are and not changing them for personal reasons, making changes only when they are necessary to depict reality more intensively’.
Here ‘intentional’ geometry and the geometry of ‘chance’ meet, in a calculated model that can nonetheless be traced back to „reflections“, to roofs and building fronts, to ripples in water and houses mirrored in canals.
This work exudes „Delft“, even though the direct link to the original has been severed. The relief is a simulacrum, a copy without an original, functioning as an autonomous creation.“

Antoon Melissen, Jan Schoonhoven,
Rotterdam 2015, p. 162