Artwork Data
Artwork Location
Address
Florence Nightingaleweg, Den Haag
City district
Escamp
GPS data
52.054123777307, 4.2622171680313 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
In his sculptures, André van Lier is constantly looking for forms that possess or enter into a relationship with architecture. The sculpture 'Balk zonder einde' (Beam without end) from 1978, which was placed in the park near the Leyenburg Hospital in 1980, is a good example of this. The sculpture is more than 2 metres high and is constructed in such a way that it seems to be an open-ended structure whose function has yet to be determined or defined.
In his art, Van Lier is never concerned with the representation of certain aspects of the reality surrounding him. Traditional views on the imitation of nature or (in a more general sense) the representation of reality are irrelevant to him. His artistic insights and working methods are not nourished or influenced by them.
Van Lier's visual art revolves exclusively around the unlimited possibilities of form. By folding, recombining, repeating, cutting or changing existing forms through other interventions, new forms are created which, in turn, provoke other interventions.
In 1996, the book 'André van Lier - Twenty years' was published, in which the artist's views and working methods are explained in detail. Constructivist principles were always central to his exhibitions. Van Lier translated the relationship between architecture and art into a series of homages to Mondriaan, among other things. Using a wooden table and an elliptical object made of varnished wood, the artist gave concrete form to his vision of a famous predecessor to whom he is indebted in many respects.