On an inner wall of almost 200m2 in Kunstpunt Groningen, artist Marnix Sixma has free rein to experiment. A unique opportunity, because not often artists have the opportunity to experiment freely on a large scale. Still, working in public space, such as art on facades, squares and parking garages, requires some practice. Marnix explains what the project The Wall means to him.
Much of my work is site-specific, and I usually start from the place where the work will end up. What kind of space is it, who lives/works/passes through there, what is the background? The work I then make is almost always temporary in nature. This is also something I like to play with in terms of content: what does it mean for a work to be finite? When I heard about The Wall, I saw an excellent opportunity to explore a new space, while also developing my own work by working on a larger format. I saw the possibility of a new encounter between a space and my work; a conversation about temporariness and change.
The proposal I have written is about the theme of 'change'. Change is something that takes time to happen. I want to depict this idea of time by showing it spatially, through words that flow into each other: by repeating a word over and over and then changing it letter by letter into another word, the change from something old to something new becomes made visible. This is something in which I have already taken the first steps in previous work (such as my work commissioned for the Provinciehuis, in which I made a text appear and disappear letter by letter), but which I would like to continue with now. Now I want to make a succession of words, a chain of changes that together form an associative story.
This time I used pastel pencils. I wanted to bring more color into my work, but not in a way that would be too 'in your face'. In addition, I thought it would be very nice to be able to write directly on the wall. I can now express and emphasize the changes from one word to another through color, while the pastel shades merge with the white of the wall. As a result, the work is present, but remains subtle. You have to look twice before you realize that the line you see is made up of words.
A few days before I was allowed to start, I got the idea to give my plan the shape of a snail trail. I had to smile at this idea, because a snail is often seen as a small intruder in the house. I found it interesting to take on the role of that intruder for this project. The texts I write now crawl over the wall at a snail's pace, while the trail is not erased in the meantime. The journey that I will make as a snail in the coming weeks will soon be visible from start to finish.
That's a tricky one! "Size" is a somewhat double concept in my work: my work itself is often not very extensive, while it can encompass a large space. In this sense, the 'biggest' work I have made is perhaps the installation You're welcome, which I made in 2019 during my residency at Het Resort for the Sterrebos in Groningen. I then wrapped that park in its entire circumference with barrier tape, accompanied by signs at the entrances with the text "You're welcome" on it. The resulting confusion was unexpectedly great: the telephone of the municipality of Groningen rang red hot those days with questions about what was going on with the Sterrebos. A surprising outcome, because the park had become a forgotten place for many people over the years.
I am very doubtful about this! On the one hand, I would love to be able to work with the wall of a tower/apartment/skyscraper; something with which I could make a word or sentence a part of the skyline of Groningen. On the other hand, I also find it very interesting to work with a wall that is easily overlooked, such as the wall in the Folkingestraat for which Peter de Kan made the work Ook Hier (1997). I find both that which is always visible and that which is almost always overlooked, fascinating. I would like to work with both types of walls in the future.
I see this gigantic wall (and floor) as an invitation to play, to feel what is possible and then react to it. The snail trail is a starting point for me, a framework that I set for myself to be able to think further along. They are, as it were, the rules of the game that I give myself. Between those lines, however, there is also a lot of space that I am learning to see better and better, I have already noticed that in the past week and a half. If I can look back on a well played game after these six weeks, I think it has been a successful project.