According to Maria-Rosa Boezem, who had taken over as coordinator from 1978
onwards, the successful element of Forum was in the idea. Forum worked as a
kind of magnet that attracted willing, motivated, art-interested people. By paying
so much attention to the interaction between artists and audience the result be
came fuller and more emotional. Artists from different countries came into con
tact with each other, saw each other's work and were inspired by each other. The
audience thus played an important role. This form of interaction between artists
and audience formed the fundamental idea of Forum.2
With financial support from the province, the municipality, and the then
so-called Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Welfare, Marinus and Ma
ria-Rosa Boezem were able to organise twelve unique Forum manifestations: Fo
rum 77 (1977), Theater (1978), Audio-visual 1 (1979) and Audio-visual 2 (1979),
Beyond Dance (1980), Sculpture/Architecture (1980), Design (1981), Ornamenta
tion (1982), Sculpture (1983), Forum en Scène (1984), Architecture as an Imaginary
Reality (1986) and The Artist and his Critic (1987). For these ten years, Maria-Rosa
and Marinus Boezem brought artists and theorists - many of whom are looked
upon today as leading figures of the artistic avant-garde from the Netherlands
and abroad - to Middelburg to enliven the city and inspire people with lectures,
workshops and site specific works. Many of them made contacts with local res
idents and visitors. Marina Abramovic, Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Buren, Lothar
Baumgarten, Bernard Tschumi and Vito Acconci are but a few on the long list of
noteworthy participating artists.
Some remnants of Forum are the book Forum 1977-1987: Explorations of Art
from beyond the Fringe3 and the exhibition 10 jaar Forum: Kunst in de luwte (2015),
of which the latter was part of a greater manifestation that celebrated Marinus
Boezem's eightieth birthday (Boezem Co). They carry with them history and tes
tify to Middelburg as a temporal world stage for revolutionary, intelligent ideas.
Remarkably enough though, inhabitants of Middelburg do not seem to actively
remember this artistic manifestation, neither has it been recorded in the recently
published book: Middelburg, Gezicht van de Stad (2017), which aimed to describe
the city's history after its celebration of 800 years city rights. Considering the fact
that it has only been thirty years since the last Forum manifestation occurred and
Eva Langerak
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2 Interview with Antje von Graevenitz, interviewed by Eva Langerak, April 13, 2018.
3 Maria-Rosa Boezem and Philip Peters (eds), Forum 1977-1987: Een verkenning van kunst in de
luwte Forum 1977-1987: Explorations of Art from beyond the Fringe. Eindhoven Airport: Kem
pen Publishers, 1994.
