Niels and the Lilies (2013)
14 BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS ON ALUMINUM, VARNISH ON PAPER
Fourteen black-and-white portraits of a boy hang in Elke Andreas Boon's museum room, a retake of the 2009 series Niels. The boy's recurring, somewhat forced pose reads like a reference to the social straitjacket in which he - like every human being - finds himself. That straitjacket does provide structure, but at the same time casts a shadow over life and prevents the full development of the individual, a different aspect of which, as it were, is highlighted in each photo. That Boon attempts to evade confinement and - regardless of all confinement - wants to reveal beauty also suggests the varnished white paper lilies on the floor. Their materiality and the associations they evoke add a poetic dimension. White and unfolded, they can stand for purity and self-development, but equally they imply impermanence. Through their interaction with the black-and-white portraits, Boon offers the viewer a wider perspective on the condition humaine that is liberating.