Lesley Hilling presents The Enigmatic World of Joesph Boshier

http://www.josephboshier.co.uk The aim of The Joseph Boshier Collective was to bring the work of architect and outsider artist Joseph Boshier (1898 - 1982) to the public's attention. He may or may not have existed, that was for the audience/viewer to decide. The project explored art, architecture, politics and social housing, creating a fictional character, fabricating a life for him and placing him firmly in 20th century history, we hoped to challenge ideas about cultural status and legitimacy. On September 29th 1948 the first two floors of Chesney Court buckled and the ten storey concrete structure collapsed leaving three dead and forty seven injured. Ten years earlier the building was proclaimed as a breakthrough in design and construction, the collapse of the building shook the architectural world and the public at large. Although the subsequent inquiry could find no obvious reason for the disaster, the press singled out the architect, Joseph Boshier for blame. Joseph Boshier was a successful London architect with several impressive projects behind him - now his career was in ruins. After a nervous breakdown and estrangement from his wife and child Joseph became a virtual recluse. He disappeared from the architectural scene and was forgotten. On his death in 1982 his south London home revealed a staggering trove of intricate wooden sculptures and a mass of drawings and writings. Subsisting for decades on a tiny income, he had produced a series of extraordinary sculptures, collaging new forms out of salvaged wood - often using his own floorboards and furniture and re-working them with an obsessive joinery. His largest piece echoes the L shape structure of Chesney Court but also resembles a curiosity cabinet or old fashioned front room sideboard. These works are not architectural models of Chesney Court but perhaps an exploration of the lives lived within and an expression of the guilt and loss felt by the architect. A fretwork of wooden pieces built up in layers allow glimpses of what lies within - artifacts and ephemera that Joseph may have held dear, although thus far the photographs have not been identified as any of those killed in the disaster. In a sense he lifted the roof off a block of flats and showed how people transform their homes and create meaning for themselves and their own history within it. Perhaps they speak to us of our own mortality. Unexpectedly, Boshier's works, photographed in a popular sunday supplement, seemed to strike a chord with the prevailing nostalgic mood of the times. Heralded as an outstanding example of outsider art, the public flocked to see it. In November 2013 we staged an exhibition at the Standpoint Gallery in Hoxton, London. This show was a retrospective, showing all of Boshier’s work, exploring his art and architecture. It investigated how his architectural design and of course the major event of his life - the collapse of Chesney Court - was to influence his later life as an artist. The exhibition took the form of a museum - archiving, classifying, arranging and conserving the life and work of Joseph Boshier. The Documentary Film The documentary film 'The Uncovering of Joseph Boshier' accompanied the exhibition. The film, lasting for approximately 20 minutes, traces the life of Boshier, from his birth in 1898, middle class childhood in Dulwich, service in the Great War to his brief but inspiring sojourn in Berlin and Paris. His meeting with Le Corbusier and Lubetkin - all illustrated with pictures from Boshier's life and footage from the time. His politics and concerns over housing and poverty and subsequent involvement with Oswald Mosley and his regret at joining the British Union of Fascists. His career culminating in the collapse of Chesney Court, which leads to his self imposed exile. The documentary features the voice of Boshier's daughter, Constance Ripley who, sadly, is now deceased. In 1983 she gave a radio interview on Radio London talking candidly about the discovery of a father whom she had believed dead for most of her life. Narrated by Dr Derval Tubridy – in the role of architectural and cultural commentator and long time friend and correspondent of Joseph Boshier.