Artwork Data
Title
Gisteren staat, Morgenstond
Artist
Year
2005
Material
Beton met pigment
Dimensions
300 cm
Partial collection
Artwork Location
Address
Open Opslag De Beeldengalerij Zuiderpark, Den Haag
City district
Escamp
GPS data
52.057187294453, 4.2904878199158 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
A lamppost with a bulb lamp on top of a pile of building material. This is roughly what the sculptor Arjanne van der Spek has made for the sculpture gallery. In the title, 'Yesterday stands, Tomorrow's dawn', she has incorporated a play on words that refers to the source of inspiration for her work of art. Morgenstond' is one of the neighbourhoods in The Hague that Van der Spek travelled through in search of ordinary everyday objects for her sculpture. She wanted to bring representative elements of the neighbourhood to the centre of The Hague. Presumably in order to draw attention to the periphery in the centre, which is always in the spotlight.
Thus a sculpture came into being, consisting of a pile of sand, a pile of stones and a typical lamp post from the seventies. Van der Spek first modelled the entire sculpture and then cast it in concrete with sand-coloured pigment. What is striking is the extraordinarily large size of the stones. Also remarkable are the red seals or medals, which have been placed here and there on the sculpture. They refer to the red lanterns in the Chinese restaurant in The Hague where Van der Spek's idea took shape.
With its rough surface and the seemingly haphazardly assembled elements, 'Yesterday Stands, Tomorrow Stones' is an example of Van der Spek's unpolished art. Her sculptures are created intuitively from a deep-rooted sculptor's instinct. But unlike the sculpture on the Grote Marktstraat, her art is usually non-figurative. Abstract or figurative: both are difficult to interpret. For Van der Spek, the most important thing is: '[...] that you show something strange that is nevertheless correct. Actually, I try to make something with very normal means that you have never seen before.'* And that is exactly what she has done with 'Yesterday stands, tomorrow sun'.
Quote from the introduction by Franz Kaizer in: 'Twelve images of Arjanne van der Spek/Galerie Tanja Rumpff', Haarlem, 1992.
Currently, this statue is stationed in the Zuiderpark.