Arthur Slenk: His Magnum Opus (foreword: H.J.A. Hofland)

Collages of a restrained obsession.
In 1990, Arthur Slenk found two boxes of written music paper. Investigating, he found out it had been used by an amateur orchestra between 1872 and 1941. Bits of string and crumbling elastic bands kept the yellowed papers together.

The documents had not seen daylight for almost half a century. Carefully, he started examining page upon page, discovering the genesis, the varying pressure of pen upon paper, a corrected error, signs of wear in the corner where the sheet is turned over – all these traces, suddenly revealing the obscure members of this amateur orchestra.

Slenk decided to give the past a chance to revive. After cutting out the musical characters, numbers and letters, conveniently arranging the material, storing it in empty marmalade jars, and finally, pasting per page, the whole consists. After seven years, he regarded this gigantic collage of 144 pages as completed.

H.J.A. Hofland
(journalist of the century)

World Rights: De Geus
In cooperation with: Museum De Beyerd, Breda, Netherlands
ISBN: 90 445 0802 4
Price: 22,50 euro
Luxury paperback Full colour
168 pages