Setups and Upsets – Exploring the work of Willem Boshoff 

On Thursday, 4 October the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) Gallery opened the 2011 Prestigious Alumni Exhibition featuring Willem Boshoff. The Setups and Upsets exhibition took an interesting approach to exploring this artist’s work. Viewers gained insight into his private workspaces and libraries which have inspired his art-making processes.

Boshoff completed a Masters Diploma in Technology in Fine Art at Technikon Witwatersrand (now University of Johannesburg) in 1984. He taught in the Department of Fine Art and was Head of Department from 1984 to 1996. Boshoff was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University in 2008. 

Willem Boshoff is generally classified as a conceptual artist. His work explores dictionaries, botanical gardens and nature, mediaeval and early music, avant garde music, ethnic music, philosophy and language systems, which he manipulates to stonewall or subvert the institution of the traditional gallery and thus empower disenfranchised social groups or raise ecological issues.

  Willem Boshoff, Warren Siebrits and Professor Marian Sauthoff, Executive Dean, FADA, at the opening of Setups and Upsets in the FADA Gallery.

Willem Boshoff speaking at the opening of Setups and Upsets at the FADA Gallery, 4 October 2011.

Negotiating the English Labyrinth, Willem Boshoff (2003). Paper, masonite, wood, glue. (Gordon Shucht collection).

 
Tree of Knowledge Series: Druids’ Keyboard, Willem Boshoff (1997). Thirty six different species of wood, felt, material, chipboard, paint. (Jack Ginsberg Collection).

Blind Alphabet, Willem Boshoff (1990 – ongoing). Wood, steel, aluminum. (MTN Collection).

The works pictured above as well as a number of Boshoff’s other seminal artworks, were exhibited at the FADA Gallery, including:

·         Annuloid
·         City Book
·         Death of the Typewriter
·         Dromomania
·         Druid Walks: Tree Walk and Slideshow in New York in Memoriam
·         Far Far Away
·         Garden of Words
·         Hot Crossed Bowl
·         How to Win a War
·         Kante van die Wind
·         Kubus (Cube)
·         Political Candyfloss
·         Skatkisse
·         Springfontein
·         Stokkiesdraai
·         Tree of Knowledge Series: Druids’ Keyboard. 

Digital catalogues from the Exhibition are available for purchase at a cost of R50 from FADA (web-fada@uj.ac.za).

Previous alumni featured in the FADA Gallery’s Prestigious Alumni Exhibition include Gerry Human (Graphic Design alumnus), Maira Koutsoudakis (Interior Design alumnus) and Brian Steinhobel (Industrial Design alumnus).