Artwork Data
Title
Binnenstadgoden
Artist
Year
2014
Material
Keramiek
Dimensions
300 cm
Partial collection
Artwork Location
Address
Grote Marktstraat, Den Haag
City district
Centrum
GPS data
52.076864778258, 4.3131712615547 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
In the evening, when the shops are closed and the streets deserted, The Hague's city centre comes to life again. Then, for a short while, the department stores, town hall and streets are the territory of the Inner City Gods: Deatombax (god of transport), Kobrak (god of animals) and their colleagues wander around together. At least, that is how the story goes of visual artist Ingrid Mol. She invited children from group seven of six primary schools in the centre of The Hague to make one statue for all the Inner City Gods.
Ingrid Mol is known for her large, colourful and imaginative characters in ceramics. In 2004, for example, she did a project for a primary school in the Statenkwartier in The Hague with sculptures, a mural and a comic book (LINV 29 de expeditie naar de gulzige aardappelvelden). P. Struycken, initiator of the Sculpture Gallery, asked her to make a sculpture for the Sculpture Gallery especially for children. Aspects of the inner city (fashion, money, food, communication, transport, entertainment, animals and children) Mol eventually translated into Inner City Gods. A beautiful story to stimulate the imagination of children.
During a guest lesson at the schools, each child chose his or her favourite god and tried to draw it as well as possible. Mol took all the children's drawings to her studio. There she selected the most imaginative ones for each god. For some gods, she combined several drawings: the head of one, the body of another. This was followed by a phase of many small sketches in clay. To determine the pose and proportions. And then there was the problem of the pedestal. Normally, Mol's sculptures stand directly on the ground. That is why she wanted the given pedestal to have a function. That went almost without saying: the gods just clambered all over it. And on top of each other. They wanted a statue of themselves.