Willem Boshoff / Oh My Word!
11 October - 08 November 2014
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
Text,context, subtext and pretext are prime areas of concern in the new solo exhibition by Willem Boshoff titled Oh My Word!
As the title implies, taking ownership of one’s actions also involves possessing the power to describe. Beyond the exclamation though we have the simple truth of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remark, ‘Words are Deeds’.
The exhibition in its entirety addresses the question of whether words give us an acceptable reason to take action, or whether words themselves constitute action.
Artworks
Collection of wooden curios (African figures, masks, Elephants, Rhinoceros etc.), cut up into small pieces and mounted on a discarded plywood base.
210 x 110 cm
Unavailable
Found objects: a brass laboratory scale with detachable front panel in a case of glass and Philippine mahogany (Shorea negrosensis), fool's gold, sheep's knucklebones used in African divination and a base of Partridge wood (Melittia Stuhlmannii) from Mozambique
46 x 30 x 46cm
Unavailable
Rusted steel base, 21 used animal traps, also called gin traps, including solid blade spring traps, thin jaws opening traps, broad jaws opening traps and waverley jaws; with a projection
247 x 870cm weight -+100kg
Unavailable
Small wooden blocks, snippets from large twigs and branches
308 x 188 x 5cm
Unavailable
Broken porcelain shards, 2100 industrial seals/locks, extruded acrylic, used plywood base-boards
151.5 x 250.5 x 13.5cm
Unavailable
144 Sculptures black wooden sticks (Dalbergia melanoxylon), fabric, steel
215 x 67 x 71cm
Unavailable
Thermobonded felt: Polypropylene (30%), cotton (35%) and acrylic (35%). small plastic dressed-up dolls
180 x 336 cm
Unavailable
32 old dental mouthcasts on handmade paper
Work: 188 x 90 cm
Frame: 219 x 121 x 10 cm
Unavailable
Photographic prints x 3
297 x 528mm
Unavailable
37 Tarnished silver spoons mounted on a used plywood base, Q-bond adhesive, nuts and bolts.
166 x 113.5 x 10cm
Unavailable
wood (variable), glass, sandblasted text. 2014; third set in series of 3, in Partridge Wood
44 x 54 x 18.5cm
Unavailable
Etching by Johan Thom with lines made up of alphabet beads on extruded acrylic super
220 x 127.5cm
Unavailable
Plywood splinters, plywood, 24 blue mapping pins. Double glazed: extruded acrylic
199.5 x 125.5 x 14cm
Unavailable
Lambda print mounted on acrylic, ed of 3 + 2 AP
Image 120 x 180, Paper size 126 x 186cm
Unavailable