【上海·外灘】 ‘1.65’ — 雷諾·奧德霍恩Reinoud Oudshoorn中國首個展2022.10.29 – 2022.12.25

The Magic of Mist
霧的魔力

鏡頭掠過貧瘠的山脊和沙地。地表在太陽強烈地照射下，似乎成了古老的粉紅色。眼前景色在刺眼的光線下一動也不動。廣闊山谷中的靜謐被巨大的岩層守護著，這些岩層隨著時間的推移被侵蝕成不規則的形狀，將景色切割成不同視角，一個連著一個，有的彷彿身置其中，有的則是全景，像是身處巨大沙堡中的房間。撥動吉他發出的尖銳、嗚咽憂鬱的音樂伴隨著圖像飛速地切換著，而當鏡頭對準空曠的沙漠中間的一個人物時，畫面就靜止了。

一部電影是無數靜止圖像的串連，有些圖像埋藏在我們的記憶中，有些則消失得無影 無蹤。爾後，任何一位看過電影的人都會建構一個屬於自己的電影。維姆文德斯 (Wim Wenders)所執導的經典電影「巴黎，德州」(1984)，是 Reinoud Oudshoorn 最喜歡的電影之一，在開場時就創造了無數的圖像和視覺體驗。對 Reinoud Oudshoorn 來說，鏡頭的影像，從近景和遠景的交替展現了沙漠的廣闊，是 一種崇高的空間體驗。

Reinoud Oudshoorn 工作室的牆面上掛著一件於 2005 年創作，一個由水平”直角”組成 的無題作品，作品的兩個短邊被磨成了一個半圓與嵌入的磨砂玻璃。站在作品前，透 著玻璃看過去，如一個迴紋針的形狀，而藉由一個消失在透視中的暗影，體現了一個 大框架裡小小的回聲。你的視覺因此被拉至深處，進入一個虛空世界中，成就一個矛 盾聯想的舞台。汽車後視鏡的圖像若隱若現。鏡子中映出的過往印象連結了另一個記憶，一個關於車內封閉空間的實體體驗，它是周圍風景中一個獨立存在的個體，沿途一個沿著一個地
穿過，掠過一道又一道空間，不論是從汽車、林地或到建築。但記憶不是完整的，隨著影像從鏡子中漸漸消失，視線再次回到大框架裡看向小橢圓形中的空洞，它仍然懸掛在透視籠罩的玻璃中、在鐵製細節中、在基本簡單的形式美中，彷彿是一種寂靜的降臨於圖像上。畫面中的三維空間被不知不覺地轉移到一個個人所屬的想像空間。圖像已經變成一個載體，一個媒介。

「在空間體驗中被引領」是 Reinoud Oudshoorn 作品中的一個主題。正如 Reinoud Oudshoorn 在他的工作室中解釋，他的雕塑成形過程中總是從:注視著一個白色的表 面、一張紙或一堵空白的牆開始。由於高強度的注視，白色的牆從二維表面變為立體 三維狀態的那一刻，它同時創造了一個具有意識的可能性。這種凝視與觀察因此產生 了新的想法，也使過往尚未成形的計劃、尚未找到解答的形式、格式和體積、材料與 技術循環上有所進步發展。新作品的輪廓是從白色的虛空中與藝術家的經驗交叉融合 後萃取的結晶。這就是無形的、非物質的東西成為物質的方式。

在研究白牆創作的力量來源與可能性的過程中，我們發現有一段來自於藝術家童年的記憶。Reinoud Oudshoorn 的童年是在 Ommen 附近的一個鄉村莊園裡度過的，在這個廣闊的地方，他可以獨自在田野和樹林中無休止地遊蕩。他最喜歡在濃霧籠罩大地的時候散步。這不僅創造了一種低沈的靜默，還有著一種虛空，以及因自己幻想出的畫面填補這虛空寂靜的興奮感。 這與在作品上，我們可以擴張空間的體驗感有關，而這種體驗會隨著畫面的擴散變得更加強烈。霧就像是一個安全的毯子，守護了這個不被打擾的幻覺。

Reinoud Oudshoorn 在 18 歲左右看到了 Barnett Newman 的作品展覽。在阿姆斯特丹 Stedelijk 博物館舉辦的回顧展令他大開眼界:像 Cathedra 這件畫作，其寬敞的空間、 強烈的藍色和旁邊的白色帶狀線條，讓人目不暇接。「就像你可以走入畫中一樣。對我來說，那是一個起點。 」

三維空間、透視、對和諧的渴望以及對經典透視法則的迷戀，這些因素對 Reinoud Oudshoorn 的創作中扮演了重要角色。離開高中後，他選擇在恩斯赫德(Enschede) 的藝術和工業學院學習。他的才華獲得了肯定，但一年半後，他感覺看夠了而搬到了伊比薩島(Ibiza,)，在島中央的一個小房子裡居住數月，希望藉由日復一日沈浸於創 作中而有所啟發。為了賺取生活費，他在閒暇時間清洗私人游泳池。近一年後， Reinoud Oudshoorn 決定返回荷蘭。通過畫家盧卡森(Lucassen)，他被哈勒姆的 “63 工作室”(Ateliers ’63)錄取，在那裡他遇到了安蘇亞布洛姆(Ansuya Blom)、伊萊康特(Eli Content)以及後來的埃里克安德烈斯(Erik Andriesse)、瑪琳杜馬斯
(Marlene Dumas)和利奧弗羅金德韋伊(Leo Vroegindeweij)。 Oudshoorn 在這 裡找到一種被真誠對待的歸屬感。大家對作品進行了批判性的討論，並建立了終生的友誼。 在”63 工作室”最後一次展出之後，Oudshoorn 搬到了阿姆斯特丹。而他為 63 工作室最後一個項目展出的作品獲得阿姆斯特丹 Stedelijk 博物館的邀請，Oudshoorn 因此參加他們 1976 年的展覽「11 位畫家」。

1970 年代後期，雷諾.奧德霍恩受到了 Jan Roeland、Ad Dekkers、Ben Akkerman 和 Carel Visser 以及 Elsworth Kelly 作品的啓發他越來越多地開始設計雕塑，先是伴隨著繪 畫一同創作，但他最終擱置了顏料和畫筆。”繪畫導致了太多的幻覺，”他解釋說。”我希望我的作品更有形。對我來說，我的工作是在二維和三維之間。繪畫是太多的幻覺 或欺騙，而雕塑是太多的障礙。我想在觀眾的物理元素和空間之間創造一座橋梁。一件作品產生的空間必須大於它所消耗的空間。我使用源自繪畫幻覺語言的透視，並將透視的潛力應用於我的雕塑。這樣，我試圖在平面的幻覺空間和三維雕塑的具體現實之間建立一座橋梁”。

Oudshoorn 的早期作品之一是 1990 年的一件無題作品，由阿姆斯特丹的猶太歷史博物館收藏。這件垂直作品由鉛覆蓋的木頭製成，由四個獨立的形式構成，放置於彼此間隔且接近的距離，外觀是一個正方形，而裡面是一個圓形的輪廓。四個角揚升至四個高點，比人還高。這種垂直方向給人感覺到:這四點所包含空間的內部實際上也永遠在延續，在空中蔓延。這件作品與 Oudshoorn 早期的繪畫作品和 Barnett Newman 和 其他美國畫家，包括埃爾斯沃斯凱利(Elsworth Kelly)和馬克羅斯科(Mark Rothko) 作品的空間體驗有直接連結。觀眾可以看到這件雕塑輪廓是對巴內特紐曼(Barnett Newman)畫中之畫帶的直接演繹。更具意義的是將圖像或雕塑作為一個字面意義上的載體。

近期的作品探討關於滅點。因為雕塑的實體體驗對 Oudshoorn 來說非常重要，他想方設法讓他的觀眾感覺到他們被融入在整體的空間中，被融入在可見世界背後的世界 中。滅點在 Oudshoorn 的作品中總是設定在 1.65 米的高度，這與他年輕時經歷的迷霧相同，激起那種神奇的、永無止境的無窮感覺。在他的工作室或其他地方展示他的作品時，很明顯地，奧德霍恩以許多不同的方式定位消失點。他總是展示不同形式的作品，例如，與地面接觸的雕塑與懸掛的雕塑在一起，最近 2007 年的一件無名作品就是 如此，包括一條靠在牆上的鐵質曲線，被塗成深色的鋼灰色。曲線的角度變化，隨著 曲線寬闊、平展的兩端接近觀眾而按比例增加，這是由於雕塑實際上有兩個消失點的 結果。一個是把眼睛向下拉，拉到深處，另一個是消失在牆上，在眼睛的高度，在曲線的最高點之上。

「如果你站在雕塑前面，你會知道這一切真的發生在視平線。 你的感覺就像你站在海灘上，當你看向遠方時，你仍然可以看到海浪在你的眼角移動。這給人一種迷失方向的感覺」。此外，每件雕塑都需要觀眾的移動。從側面看這些雕塑，不僅可以清楚地看到它們的構造，還會產生線條與體積和形式的對比。

Reinoud Oudshoorn 的工作方法是非常精確的。當他坐在工作室時，牆壁或一張白紙就成了他的起點。然後，他畫一些小草圖，在這些草圖中，他試驗了雕塑的基本形式圓形和橢圓。他喜歡在粉紅色的方形紙上畫畫，因為隨著時間的推移，粉紅色會褪去，變成漂亮的各種色調，所以每幅畫都會有自己的顏色。當草圖產生了要進一步發展，成為雕塑的形式時，Oudshoorn 就開始按照最終雕塑的尺寸畫全圖。這些是令人 著迷的白紙，在這些白紙上，連同雕塑的草圖，他寫了無數的，似乎形成了痴迷的數列:幾何學與橢圓的計算。

“人們經常問我對數學是否有著執著迷戀與狂熱，但對我來說，數學只是一種工具。如同美學是一種工具一樣、就像努力追求技術上的完美是我工作中的一個必要因素一樣。但它本身不是一個目標，因為「匠人精神」這個意義上並不引起我的興趣。我開始在我的圖紙上寫下這些公式，因為如果我不這樣做，我會忘記它們。我在藝術作品 中最想要的是強度和完整性。專注對我來說不是一門學科。它是從迷戀與狂熱中生長 出來的。如此一來，我也藉此領悟了我與世界的關係了。”

根據安伯托·艾柯在《美的歷史》中的說法:在古希臘，哲學家蘇格拉底開始討論「萬 物的開端是什麼」的問題之時，是要找到「世界作為一個有序的整體，遵循單一規律的定義」。希臘人將世界視為形式，而形式等同於美。畢達哥拉斯後來在宇宙學、數學、自然史和美學之間建立了不可分割的關係。他是第一個說萬物之始是數字的人。 對 Oudshoorn 來說，伴隨他繪畫的計算只是一個過程，然而這些有序的系列喚起了畢達哥拉斯人學派對無限和對記憶中無法追蹤之物邊界的神聖敬畏。

“我對所有涉及使用透視的問題都甚感興趣。如果你看一下透視的發展，你會發現居中透視是一個尷尬的現象。只要設想到在海灘上，發現看到的地平線不是一條直線，而為了確定那個空間，我們所學的是中心觀點。我對這種經驗嫻熟於心。例如，在地板上的雕塑與曲線(上面提到)。當你站在一個大圓的邊緣，你無法完全看到它，因為它的邊緣在你的視線之外，所以你會經驗到一個拋物線。我對這些形式有一種巨大的 迷戀。我並不試圖做出有吸引力的繪畫或雕塑，我試圖以某種方式掌握一些東西，為了做到這一點，我需要這種精確性。一旦雕塑的形式決定後，材料的選擇也隨之而來。每一種形式的建構，就像是支持每個形式的建築一般，都有著支持它自己的元素材料。如鐵可以參考石墨鉛筆。木材也是令人感興趣的，因為它的紋理和材料的溫暖 特性，讓人有想觸摸的感覺。而我在選擇時就會考慮到了所有這些因素。”

鑒於他對空間性和透視度的偏好，在他的玻璃、鐵的雕塑中尤其明顯。Reinoud Oudshoorn 延續了一個荷蘭悠久的藝術傳統-繪畫之源。玻璃經常被認為是形而上和沈思的象徵，一方面是因為玻璃的清晰度，另一方面是因為它的神秘性。這個因素在Reinoud Oudshoorn 雕塑的空間質量中完美地產生了。在這些雕塑中，不同種類的啞光玻璃，內含於鐵中，共同構成了一個建築。正如 Jan Hoet 曾經說過的，”與玻璃有關的透視性正與蒙德里安畫派吻合。蒙德里安繪畫中的白色像玻璃，幾乎像水一樣。它有一種風景的質感”。Reinoud Oudshoorn 的作品也屬於這種傳統，即追求結構的清晰和連貫性。對透視的偏愛來自於深度的思慮感知，也是為了避免既定的邊界和框架。

這一點在 Oudshoorn 一件 2008 年作品(無題)中表現得很清楚。”我在玩雲的概念， 不斷變化膨脹的一個形式。我想製作玻璃泡沫，會涵蓋空間本身而位移，但也創造新的空間。這個牆面雕塑讓人聯想到一個光學儀器，比如眼科醫生會使用的開闔複雜鏡片。它是由三個不同格式的圓圈組成的，在一個較大的圓圈中包含另一個內圈，在它後面的又是相同形式的回聲，現在是一個較小的、漸進的視角。這些由鐵製成的圓圈，上面焊接著玻璃，而不同圓圈之間的關係始終是相同的。”Oudshoorn 想要以運動和多重性解釋三個圓圈。因為「三」是多個物體的最低數字，圓圈為我們提供了一層 地薄霧，而鐵的顏色和質地使圓圈上的孔看起來像石墨，使雕塑有一種無休止的作圖感。這種結構使較小的形式以恰到好處的方式漂浮在其他表面的背後，強調了陰影部分。三個圓圈外線的厚度是以這種:非平面、強調透視輪廓與保留了鐵的質感而選擇的。 這也是一件玩弄幻覺和三維空間的雕塑。我成為了一個雕塑家，”Reinoud Oudshoorn 喃喃自語，”但也許我仍然是那個尋找魔法的畫家。

Pietje Tegenbosch 皮耶傑·泰根博斯

皮耶傑·泰根博斯(Pietje Tegenbosch)為藝術史學家與藝評家，荷蘭人民報《de Volkskrant》 和 《Het Parool》日報的自由撰稿人。亦為荷蘭銀行藝術基金會顧問與 董事會成員。2009 年，Tegenbosch 與合作夥伴 Martin van Vreden 於阿姆斯特丹成 立 Tegenboschvanvreden 畫廊，經營國際當代藝術項目與表演講座。

The Magic of Mist
The Work of Reinoud Oudshoorn

The camera glides over bare mountain ridges and sandy plains. Punished by the sun, the earth seems an ancient pink. The landscape lies motionless in the blistering light. The stillness in the vast valleys is guarded by giant rock formations eroded over time into irregular shapes that divide the landscape into different compartments, one after the other, complete with passageways and panoramic views, like rooms in a sand castle of superhuman dimensions. The shrill, whining blues sounds of a slide guitar accompany the birdlike flight of the images, which come to a stop as the lens focuses on a figure in the middle of the empty expanse of the desert.

A film is a succession of countless still images. Some of these images nestle themselves into our memory. Others disappear into obscurity. After the fact, anyone who has watched a film constructs a film of his own. The opening scene of what has since become a classic, Paris Texas (1984) by Wim Wenders, one of Reinoud Oudshoorn’s favourite films, is characteristic in generating numerous images and experiences. For Oudshoorn, the camera’s images, which alternate from showing the immensity of the desert from up close and then from far away, is a sublime experience of spaciousness.

Hanging on the wall in Reinoud Oudshoorn’s studio is an untitled work from 2005, made up of a horizontal ‘right angle’ whose two short sides are rounded off into a semicircle into which matte glass has been worked. Standing in front of the work, you look through the glass, shaped like a paperclip, by way of a dark shadow that disappears into perspective, into a smaller echo of the larger form. Your eye is pulled into the depth, into an emptiness that proves a stage for contradictory associations.

The image of the rear view mirror of a car looms up. The reflection of passing impressions in mirrors like this are linked to a different memory, that of the physical experience of the enclosed character of the car itself, a selfcontained volume within the landscape around it, a capsule that skims along other capsules, shaves past other spaces, whether they are automobiles, woodlands or buildings. But the memory is incomplete, and as the image vanishes from the mirror and the eye once again looks
from the large form back to the emptiness in the small oval form, it remains hanging in the shrouded transparency of the glass, in the living details of the iron, in the beauty of the basic simplicity of form, as a silence descends across the image. The threedimensionality in the image is imperceptibly transported into a space for one’s own imagining. The image has become a vehicle, an intermediary.

Being carried along in the experience of space is a leitmotif in the work of Reinoud Oudshoorn. The process in which his sculptures take shape, as Oudshoorn explains in his studio, invariably begins with staring at a white surface, a piece of paper or an empty white wall. Because of the intensity of looking at it, at the moment this white surface of the wall alters from a surface into a state, it creates a consciousness of enormous potential. That staring and looking results in tapping into new ideas, as well as further development in older sculptures, on plans not yet developed and the recycling of forms, formats and volumes, materials and techniques not yet completely worked through. The contours of a new work are extracted from the crossfertilization of the white emptiness and the experiences of the artist. This is how the intangible, the immaterial, becomes material.

In the discovery of the power and the possibilities of a white surface lies a memory from the artist’s childhood Reinoud Oudshoornspent his childhood on a country estate near Ommen, an expansive area where he could wander alone, endlessly, through the fields and woods. He enjoyed walking most when a thick mist lay over the land. It not only created a muffled silence, but it also meant a kind of emptiness and the excitement of filling that emptiness with his own fantasies, thoughts and images. ‘It has to do with the fact that we can experience space as something larger and that this experience becomes more intense as an image becomes more diffuse. The illusion is not disturbed. Mist is a safe blanket.’

When he was about 18, Oudshoorn saw an exhibition of work by Barnett Newman. The retrospective at the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum was an eyeopener. ‘The spaciousness in a painting like Cathedra, its intense blue and that white band next to it, was overwhelming. You could walk into the painting, as it were. For me, that was a starting point.’

Threedimensional space, transparency, a desire for harmony and a fascination for the classic rules of perspective are ingredients that would later play a major role in the work of Reinoud Oudshoorn. On leaving high school, he chose to study at the Academy for Art and Industry in Enschede. His talent was recognized, but after a year and a half, he had seen enough and moved to Ibiza, where he lived for some months in a small house in the middle of the island, hoping to discover what it meant to be occupied with art day in, day out. To earn his keep, he cleaned private swimming pools in his spare time. After nearly a year, Oudshoorn decided to return to the Netherlands. Through the painter Lucassen, he was accepted at Ateliers ’63 in Haarlem, where he met Ansuya Blom, Eli Content and later, Erik Andriesse, Marlene Dumas and Leo Vroegindeweij. Oudshoorn had the feeling here that he had found a place where he was taken seriously. There were critical discussions about the work and lifelong friendships were forged. After his final presentation at Ateliers ’63, Oudshoorn moved to Amsterdam. The work he exhibited for his final project resulted in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum inviting Oudshoorn to take part in their 1976 exhibition, 11 Painters.

In the late 1970s – a period when Reinoud Oudshoorn was inspired by the work of Jan Roeland, Ad Dekkers, Ben Akkerman and Carel Visser, as well as Elsworth Kelly – he increasingly began making sculptures, first alongside his painting, but he eventually set aside paint and brush. ‘Painting became too much illusion,’ he explains. ‘I wanted my work to be more physical. For me, my work is between the twodimensional and the threedimensional. Painting is too much illusion or deception, and a sculpture is too much of an obstacle. I wanted to create a bridge between the physical element of the viewer and the space. A work must produce more space than it consumes. I use perspective, derived from the illusionary language of painting, and apply the potential of perspective to my sculptures. That way, I try to create a bridge between the spatial illusion of the flat surface and the concrete reality of the threedimensional sculpture.’

One of Oudshoorn’s earlier works is an untitled piece from 1990, purchased by the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. The vertical work, made of wood covered with lead, is constructed from four independent forms that are placed with as little space as possible separating them, forming the contours of a square on the outside and a circle on the inside. The four corners rise to four tall points, higher than a man. This vertical orientation gives the feeling that the interior of the space contained by the four points actually also continues forever, up in the air. This work has a direct connection to the early paintings and the spatial experience that Oudshoorn had with the work of Barnett Newman and other American painters, including Elsworth Kelly and Mark Rothko. One can see the contours of that sculpture as a direct translation of the painted band in Barnett Newman’s painting. What matters is the idea of the image or sculpture as a container, the literal containment of space.

More recent works investigate the vanishing point. Because the physical experience of a sculpture is so important to Oudshoorn, he seeks ways to give his viewers the feeling that they are included in the totality of the space, in the world that lies behind the visible world. The vanishing point – always at a height of 1.65 metres in Oudshoorn’s case – is identical to the mist that he experienced as a youngster, activating that magical feeling of neverending infinity. In presentations of his work, in his studio or elsewhere, it is clear that Oudshoorn locates vanishing points in many different ways. He always shows works of varying formats, or for example, a sculpture in contact with the floor is alongside a hanging sculpture, as is the case with a recent untitled work from 2007, comprising an iron curve leaning against the wall and painted a dark, steel grey. The changing angle of the curve, which increases proportionately as the wide, spreading ends of the curve come closer to the viewer, are the result of the fact that the sculpture actually has two vanishing points. One pulls the eye downwards, into the depths, and the other disappears on the wall at eye level, above the highest point of the curve.

‘If you stand in front of the sculpture, you know that it all really happens at eye level. You feel just like when you are standing on a beach and as you look into the distance, you can still see the waves moving in the corner of your eye. That gives a sense of disorientation.’ Each sculpture moreover demands movement from the viewer. Viewing the sculptures from the sides not only makes it clear how they are constructed, but it generates a play of lines against volumes and forms.

Reinoud Oudshoorn’s working method is extremely precise. As he sits in his studio, the wall or a sheet of blank paper serves as a starting point. He then makes small sketches, drawings in which he experiments with the basic forms for a sculpture – circles and ellipses. He prefers to draw on pink, squared paper, because in the course of time, the pink fades and changes into beautifully varied tints, so that each drawing takes on colours of its own. When the sketches produce forms to be further developed into a sculpture, Oudshoorn starts on a fullscale drawing in the dimensions of the final sculpture. These are fascinating sheets of white paper on which, along with the sketch for the sculpture, he has written countless, seemingly obsessive series’ of numbers: descriptive geometry with calculations for ellipses.

‘People often ask me if I have a fascination for mathematics, but for me, the math is just a tool, the same way aesthetics is a tool and the same way that striving for technical perfection is a necessary ingredient in my work. But it is not an objective in itself. Craftsmanship does not interest me in that sense. I started writing down those formulas on my drawings because I would forget them if I didn’t. What I most want in a work of art is intensity and integrity. Concentration is not a discipline for me. It grows out of fascination. That way, I know how I relate to the world.’

In ancient Greece, when the preSocratic philosophers began discussing the problem of what the beginning was of all things, according to Umberto Eco in The History of Beauty, it was finding a definition of the world as an ordered whole, following a single law. The Greeks experienced the world as Form, and that Form was equal to Beauty. Pythagoras later made an inextricable link between cosmology, mathematics, natural history and aesthetics. He was the first to say that the beginning of all things was the number. For Oudshoorn, the calculations accompanying his drawings are just a device, yet these ordered series’ evoke the sacred awe the Pythagoreans had for infinity and for the frontiers of what cannot be traced in memory.

‘I have developed an interest in all the problems involving the use of perspective. If you look at the development of perspective, you see that centred perspective is an awkward phenomenon. Just consider being at the beach and the discovery of seeing that horizon was not a straight line. What we learn in order to determine that space is central prospective. I play with that experience, for example, in the floor sculpture with the curve (mentioned above). As you stand at the edge of a large circle, which you cannot completely see because its edges are beyond your vision, you experience a parabola. I have an enormous fascination for those forms. I do not try to make attractive drawings or sculptures. I try to somehow get a grip on something, and in order to do it, I need that precision. Once the form for a sculpture has been determined, the choice of material follows. Each form, like the construction that has to support the form, demands its own material. Iron can refer back to a graphite pencil. Wood is interesting because of the lines of the grain and the warm character of the material, asking to be touched. I take all of these factors into account in the choices I make.’

Given his proclivity for spatiality and transparency – best expressed in his sculptures in glass and iron –Reinoud Oudshoorn continues a long, Dutch tradition of art – primarily painters. Glass is often perceived as a symbol for the metaphysical, the contemplative, on the one hand because of the clarity of glass and on the other because of its mysteriousness, a factor perfectly generated in the spatial quality of Oudshoorn’s sculptures, in which different kinds of matt glass, contained in iron, together form a construction. As Jan Hoet once said, ‘Transparency in relation to glass fits Mondriaan. The white in Mondriaan’s paintings is like glass, almost like water. It has a landscape quality.’ The tradition to which the work of Reinoud Oudshoorn also belongs is the tradition of seeking structural clarity and coherence. The preference for transparency comes from the need to bring depth to perception and also to avoid established boundaries and frameworks.

This much is made clear in one of Oudshoorn’s most recent (untitled) works, from 2008. ‘I was playing with the idea of clouds, the swelling of formations that are constantly changing. I wanted to make glass bubbles, forms that seem to move and themselves contain space, but that also create new space.’ This wall sculpture is reminiscent of an optical instrument, such as an ophthalmologist would use, with complicated lenses and open and closed parts. It is made up of three circles of different formats, captured within a larger circle, and behind it an echo of the same forms, now in a smaller, progressive perspective. The circles are made of iron, with glass soldered into it. The relationship between the different circles is always the same. Oudshoorn wanted movement and multiplicity, which explains the three circles, for three is the lowest number for multiple objects. The circles offer a mist we look through, and the colour and texture of the iron in which the holes for the circles have been cut looks like graphite, giving the sculpture the feel of an endlessly worked drawing. The structure causes the smaller forms to float in just the right way, behind the other surfaces, partly reinforced by shadows. The thickness of the outside line of the three circles is chosen insuch a way that the material feel of the iron is retained, without it becoming a flat surface, but rather a contour that accentuates the transparency. This too is a sculpture that plays with illusion and threedimensionality. ‘I became a sculptor,’ muses Reinoud Oudshoorn, ‘but maybe I am still that painter in search of magic.’