Willem Boshoff’s ongoing series Blind Alphabet (1991– ) consists of black mesh boxes, each standing on a hip-height podium. Encased in every box is an expertly carved or constructed wooden object, its form illustrative of a particular English word, such as barbigerous (bearded or hairy) or callipygian (having beautiful buttocks). On the lid of each box an aluminum plate explains the meaning of the term in Braille. Sighted viewers must be led by a blind guide in order to access the work. The guides lead the viewers from box to box, reading each Braille text aloud, opening the lids and touching the sculptures to ascertain the form with their fingertips. The sighted viewer may not touch.
Conceived as a dictionary, Blind Alphabet is one of many projects inspired by Boshoff’s intensive investigations into language. Born in 1951 in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, Boshoff grew up in a conservative Afrikans environment, with a strong mistrust of the English (for many Afrikaners the humiliating defeat inflicted on them by the British in the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902 has not been forgotten). Derided by English-speaking teaching colleagues for his unmistakably Afrikaans accent, while teaching art at a Johannesburg boys’ high school Boshoff upstaged his colleagues by researching and using obscure English words that they didn’t understand. Becoming enamored with dictionaries, Boshoff started one of his own, and his Dictionary of Perplexing English (1999) provided the motivation for the Blind Alphabet.
For Secret Letters (2003), Boshoff reflected on the time Nelson Mandela spent in prison. The artist interspersed cards with dates and headlines marking important events Mandela missed while he was in jail, with rosettes of printed type, pushed into holes on ten large boards, simulating the crumpled-up letters prisoners would try to smuggle out of the prison. Together the number of “letters” and the date cards add up to 9,377 days, the exact length of time of Mandela’s incarceration.
Boshoff’s obsession with acquiring knowledge extends into many different areas. For Garden of Words III (2006), set up in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, Cape Town, he printed the names of 15,000 endangered plants onto sheets of thin white plastic, twisting the sheets into support cones to look like paper flowers, and laying the “flowers” out in grids. Says Boshoff, who has executed this project in other parts of South Africa and Europe, “My gardens combine the idea of philosophical ‘plantless’ flower beds with that of memorial gardens in honor of soldiers who do not return from war.”
Simultaneously informing his viewers and making the offered information difficult to read, Garden of Words III is symptomatic of Boshoff’s approach. In a 2004 interview with writer Ivan Vladislavi´c, Boshoff said of his intentions, “I don’t want to help people, I want to mess with their heads.”
Blind Alphabet ABC 1991–95
A morphological dictionary for the blind Wood, steel, aluminium
Dimensions variable
Height of each box 73.5 cm
Collections: SA National Gallery, Cape Town (77 units)
Sandton Art Gallery, Johannesburg (49 units)
Oliewenhuis Art Gallery, Bloemfontein (94 units)
Artsense, Birmingham (77 units)
The artist (45 units)
Image courtesy of the São Paulo Biennale
© Willem Boshoff
Blind Alphabet (Dacryoid-Drusiform): Dacryoid 2007
Dacyroid: teardrop-shaped, with one rounded and one more or less pointed end Carved wood
Image courtesy of the artist and the Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
Photographer: Mario Todeschini
© Willem Boshoff
Blind Alphabet (Dacryoid-Drusiform): Delphinoid 2007
Delphinoid: pertaining to or resembling a dolphin Carved wood
Image courtesy of the artist and the Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
Photographer: Mario Todeschini
© Willem Boshoff
Blind Alphabet (Echinoid-Evection): Elytriform 2007
Elytriform: having the form or structure of the hardenened forewing of a beetle
Image courtesy of the artist and the Michael Stevenson, Cape Town
Photographer: Mario Todeschini
© Willem Boshoff
Garden of Words III 2006
Installation view: Kirstenbosch
Botanic Gardens, Cape Town
Printed plastic sheets, plastic cones
Dimensions variable
Image courtesy the artist
© Willem Boshoff
Secret Letters (installation view) 2003
A wall piece reflecting on the days Mr. Nelson Mandela spent in prison after the Rivonia trial, 10 large spray-painted wooden panels, lined with rosettes of white cloth containing text that is difficult to read, and cards containing a legible text.
206 x 85 x 8 cm
Photograph: courtesy of the Michael
Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
© Willem Boshoff
Secret Letters (detail) 2003
10 x spray-painted wooden panels, printed cloth, printed cards
206 x 85 x 8 cm
Image courtesy of the Michael
Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town
© Willem Boshoff