kagablog

Wikipedia tells us that Hermes is a messenger from the gods to humans, who also gives us our word “hermeneutics” for the art of interpreting hidden meaning. But in order to fully comprehend the manner in which Willem Boshoff, an alchemist, works, we need to delve further into the world of words derived from Hermes to uncover the hermetic tradition. The word “hermetic” is commonly applied to literary or graphic symbolism that is exceedingly obscure, convoluted, or esoteric. In that context, hermeticism is the deliberate use of hermetic imagery.

This may seem paradoxical at first. Messenger Hermes is used to uncover secrets and also the exact opposite, to create mysteries. But in fact there is no paradox: nothing is obvious. Willem Boshoff, an alchemist, is not an “artist” in the strict sense. His works displayed in the Standard Bank Gallery are all conceptual experiments that come accompanied by an A4 page description by the artist of his pedagogical intent. These descriptions are models of clarity and argue well for the notion of art as a conveyer of directly communicable meaning. His aim is always true as it were, and the descriptions often flatten the work, driving out the possibility of any confusion in the viewer but also exorcising the work of any possible magic - any resonance beyond the strictly circumscribed nature of the conceptual experiment.

That is the hermeneutical level at which the works, individually, “work”. But in this unique gathering of more than a quarter century’s worth of Boshoff we are treated to a rare insight into how alchemy actually functions. While not a single exhibited work in the gallery represents Boshoff the man, or Boshoff the “artist” in any way remotely resembling portraiture - the overarching achievement of the exhibition is to provide the viewer with a god-like overview of this mammoth sculpture in time - a vast self-portrait of the artist, conceived and executed by forces wholly beyond his control and outside of his monomaniacal attempts at ordering the world, at systemising the chaos of existence.

This is the hermetic meaning of Willem Boshoff’s work. The secret waiting to be uncovered beneath the ostensible “meaning” of each work that the artist, in a wily play at disingenuosity, parades before the awe-struck critics and theorists confined within the conceptual cage of the “art” world. Boshoff has given as the reason for his recent succumbing to lead poisoning the fact that as a young man he inhaled large amounts of the heavy substance while sanding the painted surfaces of the houses he restored for a living. The artist’s explanation notwithstanding it remains an indisputable fact that the primary goal of all alchemists has always been to transform lead into gold. This transformative activity is the substance of the alchemy of Willem Boshoff. The “artworks” shown are merely the leavings of this process. And nothing is obvious. Obviously.

Aryan Kaganof
9-10-2007