Geert van Beijeren; Wim Beeren

3 volumes. Two softcover exhibition catalogs, 232 and 96 pages, in Dutch and English. Contributions by many conceptual and minimal artists including & Verslag / Report Sonsbeek 71.
Includes statement by Ruscha regarding the creation of his book “Dutch Details.”

The working committee also wanted to make visitors aware of the influence that (new) communication technologies, such as the telephone and the telex machine, were having on the perception of space, distance, and time. As a result, special communication centres were set up in Arnhem, Maastricht, Leiden, Rotterdam, Groningen, and Enschede, where everyone was given the opportunity to use these devices. The concept of Sonsbeek '71, which in the catalogue was described as an adventure and a dynamic manifestation, was both revolutionary and controversial. Not only visitors, but also art critics and even artists themselves criticized the spreading out of the artworks and the subsidization of “elite art”, a qualification that was circulated in the media. Sonsbeek '71 was meant to unite art and society, but instead it only made people more aware of the distance between the public and artists and art experts.

Two-volume catalogue published in conjunction with exhibition held at Sonsbeek Park, Arnhem, June 19 - August 15, 1971. Includes supplementary information for Part 1, as well as a bibliography of exhibition documentation. Sonsbeek Park had been the site of international sculpture exhibitions periodically from 1949. This 1971 show departed from the usual format by commissioning site-specific works that appeared throughout Holland, and by incorporating film, video, telex, a small on-site offset press where artists' plans could be printed, and by sponsoring artists' publications (such as Ruscha's Dutch Details).… (altro)