Jan Schoonhoven R 61-1, 1961 — White Relief at Paris Museum

5 October 2017 · Paris

Jan Schoonhoven's R 61-1 hangs on a white museum wall, its grid of raised paper-pulp squares casting shallow shadows across the surface. Made in 1961, it is one of the foundational works of the Dutch Nul movement — a group that pushed seriality, repetition, and pure white to their logical extreme. The relief does two things at once: it is a painting in the flattest possible sense and a sculpture that lives entirely through the light that falls across it.