Thanks to recent restorations at EYE, there is increasing appreciation of the work of the late Maarten Visser (1929-2009). In his spare time, this teacher at Amsterdam’s Montessori Lyceum spent years working on moving abstract compositions, which became increasingly refined in image and movement, but which he did not want to show in public.
Visser primarily allowed himself to be inspired by the art of the early 20th century – for instance the work of Paul Klee and the ‘visual music’ of Norman McLaren and Bauhaus filmmakers like Oskar Fischinger. In the case of Visser, the projection surface is always made up of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. He plays with the mosaic structure like a chessboard; by making motifs partly in line and partly in colour, the artist combines two visual components together in counterpoint. Often his works are also variations on the same motif. Choosing a visual counterpoint of line and colour, thematic variations, mirror images and inversions, metamorphoses and the play with motif versus background typify the work of Maarten Visser. Thu 24-Sat 2, 17:45-18:15, free admission, foyer Rotterdamse Schouwburg
Film details
- Country of production
- Netherlands
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2013
- Medium/Format
- -
- Language
- no dialogue
- Premiere status
- None
