Artwork Data

Title

Omgevingskunstwerk met zes sculpturen

Artist

Carel Visser

Year

1985

Material

Staal en beton

Artwork Location

Address

Stadhouderlaan, Den Haag

City district

Scheveningen

Artwork Description

Text

That miserable corner near Stadhouderslaan'. This is how internationally renowned sculptor Carel Visser described the spot that architect Wim Quist had assigned to him in his design for the Museon. The former 'Museum for Education' informs about all stages of development of our existence, from fossils to computers. Visser decided to give shape to these phases in six sculptures: from primeval animals to oil rigs. The thick, sheet metal sculptures stand and lie scattered along the upright edge of the cloud-shaped pond that the artist also designed. The sculptures have deliberately not been placed in a particular order: one phase is not superior to another.

For the shape of the pond - the cloud shape can be clearly seen from the air - Visser based himself on the semicircular protrusions in the Museon wall. The clouds in the sky are thus reflected in their mirror image, an effect that Visser has often used.

This work by Visser dates from a period when the artist made much more fragile constellations in his free work: stacks of feathers, wool, bones, glass, etc. For this spot in the public space, such a work would have been much more fragile. Such a work would have been far too fragile for this spot in the public space.

Visser has never pinned himself down to one style. In the period that he worked mainly with iron, he made both fragile and massive sculptures. You could say that after a brief figurative phase, he mainly produced abstract geometric work until the mid-sixties. However, he looked for ways to break through the classical laws of composition, first by playing with balance, gradually by introducing unstable constructions such as leather and bending sheets of steel, and again later by the aforementioned stacks. These massive steel sculptures at Museon are therefore often not noticed as Visser's work. A pity, because the sculptures and the pond are certainly worth a stroll.

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