John Blake "To Touch"

‘The installation plan for De Appel is best described as a circuit of works, each one a whole and autonomous signal but aligned so that the works' boundaries touch, one work flowing into another. This is my usual tactic, for I am not concerned with decorating sites, but a site can be exploited to increase the focus of studio production. The De Appel works will be a combination of photographic 'constructions' (from the Answer Print series) and diapositive projections keyed to the architecture; altogether the circuit is called To Touch. From April 27th through May 5th other works are being exhibited in a nineteenth-century Orangerie located in Elswout (parklands) Overveen. One large drawing, Arena, will occupy the buildings main hall. An audio work, Flowers / Grow / Hard, will be installed in the glass-domed greenhouse area and related studies will be shown, all becoming integrated features of the Orangerie's dignified architecture. The two exhibitions can be seen in tandem. Elswout concentrates on drawing and sound; the De Appel installation on the photo-mechanical side of my work, but the mediums do not divide. The works are all concerned with human contact, between one individual and the space and time that he passes through, between one individual and another, between one individual and his own reflected image.’ (John Blake, ‘Human contact’, Newsletter De Appel, 1 (1986) 2.)