‘La Pièce’ (1971), by Ger van Elk.

In 1971, Van Elk lacquered a small block of wood (7 x 9,5 cm) white, while on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, just West of Iceland, in the purest air in the world. It was exhibited in the group show ‘Sonsbeeck buiten de perken’. Van Elk considered it a “European answer” to the megalomaniac artworks that American artists like Richard Serra and Robert Smithson were showing there.