Category: A-I

HETTY HUISMAN, “Een brief aan Pyth, dus niet aan Jan en Klaas”, n.d., postal stamp 1984
10,4 x 14,8 cm
offset
published by Time Based Arts, Amsterdam
inv.HHui 000-pr

HETTY HUISMAN, From Void to Void to Void to Void, 1982
29,7 x 21 cm
lecture by Hetty Huisman dd. 31 March
print, twice folded as issued for mailing
published by De Appel, Amsterdam
inv.HHui 000-pr

HETTY HUISMAN, From Void to Void to Void to Void, 1982
29,7 x 21 cm
print on thin paper, ink stamp, once folded as issued for mailing
published by De Appel, Amsterdam

Added: report by KvG with taped on entrance ticket

Translation in English:

HETTY HUISMAN
“From Void to Void to Void to Void”, 1982

Report

– A computer with a screen, on which slides with texts (acting as answers to questions – in writing and previously sent to Hetty Huisman). A keyboard could be used by the visitors. This provided an answer(?) to questions such as “What comes after From Void to Void to Void?” Answers were given on the screen as: “Because the end of the talk is implied in the beginning” (Yves Klein quote), etc.
– A film was shown with ceramic stripes and prints on paper. Before the film was played you heard through a loudspeaker 1: “Wiès? Wiès?” and by loudspeaker 2: “Uh, Uh, Uh…”. During the film, Hetty’s voice was heard saying “The gaze lurks at a glance[?] for itself/her flight is carried long and unbalanced.”
– In an opposite corner, music by David Zack (Am. friend of Hetty) began to accompany a second film. This concerned more confessional literature (emotionally written sentences like “Oh, sure, I would.”) or identity texts put down by Hetty on sheets of paper. (David Zack sang about “problems in visualizing identity”). And about washing machines, etc. “I don’t use drugs; I use a dishwasher”.
– As a last part the “Lighthouse” was put into operation. Two images of ceramic paint or powder were rotated as beams of light using slide projectors. One image depicted a head with a crown (of Hetty). Musically, these images were accompanied by a monotonous booming sound.

The form.
– Is it useful to ask yourself whether something is correctly presented in a certain form? No, because it doesn’t matter whether I went to a ‘lecture’ or an ‘audio-visual performance’.
– Questions could be asked in advance: that is, before the lecture had taken place and before the content was known.
– Direct ceramic prints or objects were absent. It was now only available in the form of documentation (in the form of slides and film). The drawings themselves, which referred to ceramics, were replaced: ceramic objects > ceramic drawings > film, slides, sound.

What is new or different in her work or in its development?
1st The sound
2nd Identity texts on ceramic drawings.

 I believe that research into ceramic materials has shifted to questions about one’s own identity.

Kees van Gelder, 31 March 1982

HETTY HUISMAN, Gebruikersniveau / User level, January 1987
14.4 x 10.5 cm
pencil, exhibition card, verso
Collection K. van Gelder, Amsterdam
inv.HHui 205-pr

This is not an edition, this is a drawing by Hetty Huisman explaining ‘the principle of each computer’. It is made on the back side of an exhibition card. She visited the gallery and I remember that she talked about ‘zeros’ and ‘ones’, about Tartan, Cobalt, Pascal, Basic. She tried to explain to me how the essence of a computer could be nailed down. Decades later I realised how much this was related to her thinking about her conceptual and deconstructive approach to ceramics. KvG