Movie
Jan Schoonhoven - Beambte 18977
Documentaire (kunst, geschiedenis), 2005, 53 min, NL gesproken, ENG ondertiteld, regie Sherman De Jesus, DVD plastic case geseald SYNOPSIS: International artist Jan Schoonhoven was a legend in his own lifetime. People compared him with Vermeer and Mondrian. These days his mysterious white reliefs are worth a fortune at auction. Jan Schoonhoven himself lived the life of a humble post-office official, while maintaining to the end an unshakeable faith in the potency of his art. Gothic churches and the streets in his home town of Delft were a great source of inspiration, as well as the imposing cathedrals of Chartres, Paris and Cologne. In the early 1960s Jan Schoonhoven, together with Armando, Jan Henderikse and Henk Peeters, formed the avant-garde Nul Group, linked to the Zero Group of European avant-gardists (Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Lucio Fontana, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Gr Uecker and Yayoi Kusama). He was included in the Guggenheim Museums recent survey "Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s-60s" with follow-ups in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, Germany and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Jan Schoonhoven achieves "a sense of timelessness through utmost simplicity." art critic Roberta Smith wrote in the The New York Times in 2015. In Jan Schoonhoven - Official 18977, film maker Sherman De Jesus evokes Jan Schoonhoven's determined quest for the absolute, authentic work of art. The film combines humour and emotion with unique storytelling which climaxes when artist Jan Henderikse sets out to investigate the disappearance of an irreplaceable work by Schoonhoven. Who was this man who could stand stark naked to allow Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama to cover him with polka dots one day, then turn up bang on time at the office the next? The documentary Jan Schoonhoven - Official 18977 answers that question.