Exhibition View, Martin Boyce, No Longer Fathom,
Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich 2020
Galerie Eva Presenhuber is delighted to present No Longer Fathom, the gallery’s fourth solo exhibition with the Scottish artist Martin Boyce.
At first, Martin Boyce’s installations often appear cool and conceptual, full of references to classical modernist design, art, and architecture. But, although Boyce alludes to the built utopias and the clear, geometric forms of that time, his work also has a dark, pensively poetic undertone that augurs the end of an era. And not just the end of the 20th-century avant-garde, whose dreams and triumphs still echo in our present, but also the end of our very own time. Where the spirit of “form follows function” can be said to blow through his sculptures and drawings, quiescent allusions to nature, poetry, and film noir are like shadows lingering over them. A sense of transience and abandonment inhabits Boyce’s work, giving it a romantic touch.
For his exhibition at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Boyce built three modernist chairs out of steel and wood, their backs adjustable in height. Leaning against three wall-mounted doors, which are suspended just above the floor, and placed directly under their doorknobs, the chairs act like improvised barriers barring anyone entrance. In dialogue with these are four painted aluminum wall panels in white, yellow, red, and green on which are mounted specially designed telephones: they look like relics from a different time, back when public telephones were still in use—but their bright colors and rhomboid shape also make them look like some sort of futuristic oracle. In addition, there is a multi-pronged metal item, tipped on a base: the weathered-looking chandelier mount is reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s bottle rack, but also of a dead insect or an anchor stranded on dry land. It all looks as though someone was constructing haunted-house elements—dead and unseeing objects which, though once created for the purposes of connection, communication, and togetherness, have now lost their function. Instead, they only convey silence, exclusion, and the history of a home that once stood for protection, community, and openness.
Studio Martin Boyce
No Longer Fathom, 2020
It is true, the exhibition No Longer Fathom comes at a time when such values are no longer givens: whereas thousands of people leave their homes, others barricade themselves behind their doors. Wherever we are, feelings of insecurity, fear, and vulnerability are omnipresent, like being adrift on the ocean. A house is no longer mere shelter but is either abandoned or fortified. The promise that doors will open and the expectation that landlines will ring no longer hold true. We are stuck in a waiting room without knowing what is happening.
It is this feeling of unsteadiness to which the exhibition title alludes. The word “fathom” denotes a unit of measurement for the depth of water, and one fathom equals six feet (about 1.82 meters), which corresponds roughly to the length of a human body. It was originally measured by “the space to which a man can extend his arms,” which corresponds to the original meaning of the word: in Old English, “to fathom” used to be a synonym for the verb “embrace.” Later that meaning was expanded to measure not just reach, but any capacity: whether profundity, penetration, or intellect. No Longer Fathom is a poetic allusion to the multiple meanings of the word—and to the fact that a lot in life is unfathomable.
FATHOMLESS SEAS
2020
Chair: Painted steel, painted steel chain, leather, foam, plywood
Door: Tulipwood and birch ply, welded steel, brass
Chair 44 x 53 x 70 cm / 17 3/8 x 20 7/8 x 27 1/2 in
Door 204 x 83 x 10 cm / 80 3/8 x 32 5/8 x 3 7/8 in
TURBULENT SHORES
2020
Chair: Painted & galvanised steel, painted & galvanised perforated steel
Door: Tulipwood and birch ply, welded steel, brass
Chair 40.5 x 50 x 79 cm / 16 x 19 5/8 x 31 1/8 in
Door 204 x 83 x 10 cm / 80 3/8 x 32 5/8 x 3 7/8 in
HERE COME THE WAVES
2020
Chair: Sapele and oak veneered mdf
Door: Tulipwood and birch ply, welded steel, brass
Chair 50.5 x 50 x 82 cm / 19 7/8 x 19 5/8 x 32 1/4 in
Door 237 x 124 x 10 cm / 93 1/4 x 48 7/8 x 3 7/8 in
YELLOW TELEPHONE (SLEEPING) FOR JG
2020
Patinated steel, etched and painted aluminium, painted silicone moulded vacuum cast resin, coiled cable
167.5 x 111.5 x 11 cm / 66 x 43 7/8 x 4 3/8 in
RED TELEPHONE (WAITING)
2020
Patinated steel, etched and painted aluminium, painted silicone moulded vacuum cast resin, coiled cable
167.5 x 111.5 x 11 cm / 66 x 43 7/8 x 4 3/8 in
YELLOW TELEPHONE (SEARCHING)
2020
Patinated steel, etched and painted aluminium, painted silicone moulded vacuum cast resin, coiled cable
167.5 x 111.5 x 11 cm / 66 x 43 7/8 x 4 3/8 in
BLACK TELEPHONE (DREAMING)
2020
Patinated steel, etched and painted aluminium, painted silicone moulded vacuum cast resin, coiled cable
221 x 166 x 11 cm / 87 x 65 3/8 x 4 3/8 in
NO LONGER FATHOM
2020
Chandelier: Galvanised steel, steel chain
Plinth: Stained Plywood
Chandelier 90 x 90 x 90 cm / 35 3/8 x 35 3/8 x 35 3/8 in
Pedestal 70 x 55 x 55 cm / 27 1/2 x 21 5/8 x 21 5/8 in
Total dims. 120 x 90 x 90 cm / 47 1/4 x 35 3/8 x 35 3/8 in
CHAIR (NOIR)
1999
B&W photograph, framed
Ed. 2/10 + 2 AP
25.5 x 21.5 x 3.5 cm / 10 1/8 x 8 1/2 x 1 3/8 in
NLF / CH01
2020
Patinated steel, stained plywood, pen, tracing paper
75.5 x 64 x 4 cm / 29 5/8 x 25 1/4 x 1 5/8 in
NLF / CH02
2020
Patinated steel, stained plywood, pen, tracing paper
75.5 x 64 x 4 cm / 29 5/8 x 25 1/4 x 1 5/8 in
NLF / CH06
2020
Patinated steel, stained plywood, pen, tracing paper
75.5 x 64 x 4 cm / 29 5/8 x 25 1/4 x 1 5/8 in
NOT REMEMBERING OR FORGETTING
2019
Steel, patinated and waxed brass, etched and waxed brass, etching ink
30 x 30 x 30 cm / 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in
A SUNG HUMMINGBIRD
2018
Jesmonite, steel, oiled wood
100.5 x 75.5 x 4.5 cm / 39 5/8 x 29 3/4 x 1 3/4 in
TREACHEROUS IN CALM AND STILL IN STORM
2018
Painted perforated steel, aluminum, painted and stained steel, painted and stained steel chain
166.5 x 110.5 x 15 cm / 65 1/2 x 43 1/2 x 5 7/8 in
Found image
Wall mounted telephone
“Some time ago, I came across an image of an old wall-mounted phone. It was simultaneously familiar and distant, like an object in a fictional setting, one step removed from reality. There was something cinematic about this image that carried with it a silent sense of expectation and potential. I imagined being alone in an empty lobby and the phone ringing. What narrative would unfold if I lifted that receiver? From there, I began to think of the telephone and its relationship to location and how a phone call would once have been a way to connect two fixed points in space and time. Two phones in two different rooms in two distant cities, a technological device as a portal, the direct intimacy of words spoken into a listening ear.”
Martin Boyce
Installation view, Martin Boyce, When Now is Night,
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, US
"The chair pieces could also be seen to originate from fictional or cinematic sources. The image of a chair being used to wedge a door closed is something that was lodged into my mind from a young age, a moment of film noir drama perhaps."
Martin Boyce
Photo: Scarlett Williams
Martin Boyce was born 1967 in Hamilton, UK, and lives and works in Glasgow, UK. Boyce was honored with the 2011 Turner Prize for his installation Do Words Have Voices, presented at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK. Boyce represented Scotland at the 53rd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2009. Boyce has been the subject of solo exhibitions at international institutions including CONVENT Space for Contemporary Art, Ghent, BE; Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, UK; A4 Art Museum, Chengdu, CN; Tate Britain, London, UK; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel, Basel, CH; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, US; Tramway, Glasgow, UK; and Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, DE.
