Marijn Bax / AUDIO&TEXT / Reflections (2016)

Thanks to the Mondrian Fund

REFLECTIONS

In the former house and studio of artist Arnold van de laar – famous for his copies of masterworks in the early 20th century – I created an intimate audio-walk.

Time has stood still since Arnold van de Laar let the house to his three daughters, who remained there their whole lives. Two of them, as well as his grandson, even kept working in his studios. All those years, hardly anything has changed or moved.

In the audio-walk, a soft voice guided the audience one by one though several rooms in the house. The narration, told from the perspective of one of Van de Laar’s daughters, questions the relation between his personal life and his talent for copying. All the while, fact and fiction become hard to tell apart.

By blurring the boundary between fact and fiction in this work, I’m challenging our collective capacity for interpretation. What is factually true and what is made-up? And, more importantly, does it matter? In the end, don’t we all see and hear the stories that most conveniently suit our own?

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We, the walls

All paint

Sisters and father

Who otherwise, around me

A world

With you

Here, right now

The pigment in time

Walls tell a story

Materials, they color

The colors blend me

Till I turn black

A black that absorbs

And digs in

Me

You

My curls

Gold, like the frames

Around copies

They live

We make up

The stories, they don’t talk

But speak

My father

The old masters

Like mirrors in his hands

Nearly translucent

Double

Two in one

They used to be

Or remain still

That corner!

On top of the cabinet

Always present

Safe

No, necessary

Faithfully connected

Invisible

Inside his bag, a lock of his hair

A brother

And I

Together as well

My sister(s)

We breathe the air

And think the other

Feel

Our father

The copy

MARIJN BAX