"Ger van elk has been working on his multifaceted oeuvre for more than forty years. As an artist he occupies a nonconformist position: earnest, radical, witty and always engaged in a quest for ambiguity.
Van Elk produced his first works in the early 1960s, after studying in Amsterdam, Groningen and Los Angeles. It was a period in which he developed a theoretical foundation that has remained highly important throughout his career. He demonstrated that he was a rebellious and free spirit with his tent installations, actions, experiments with a diversity of media and collaborations with other artists. He inquired into the role of the artist and rejected personal expression, jettisoning traditional views about the art object and the production of art. Like a great many of his contemporaries he was preoccupied by issues such as authorship and the original, questions that proved to be highly significant in the development of Conceptual Art. In the 1960s, '70s and '80s he spent extended periods in Los Angeles, where he met kindred spirits such as William Leavitt, Allen Ruppersberg and John Baldessari. He also rekindled his friendship with Bas Jan Ader, whose acquaintance he had already made in the Netherlands.
In every phase of his artistic career he has held the foundations of visual art up to the light, sometimes in a carefree manner but at other times villainously or disruptively." (From the Foreword of this book).

There has never been a comprehensive study of Van Elk's work until now. This publication provides a wide-ranging introduction to his work; it presents a meticulous but ample selection from his oeuvre without being a catalogue raisonné.