Artwork Data
Title
Kleurvelden op een gebogen en gedraaide vorm
Artist
Matthijs van Dam, Peter Jansen
Year
1991
Material
metaal en verf
Artwork Location
Address
Binckhorstlaan, Den Haag
City district
Laak
GPS data
52.074169131985, 4.33036140616 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
Fields of colour on a curved and twisted form' is the official title of the blue arch on Binckhorstlaan, known to all passers-by of the railway viaduct. It is a work by the artist duo Jansen & Van Dam, who have realised many striking sculptures in public space.
The two came from different disciplines. Van Dam was trained as a graphic designer but increasingly carried out commissions in public spaces. Jansen, on the other hand, was trained as an autonomous painter and gradually developed into a graphic designer for large companies such as PTT, KLM and Ahrend.
Jansen and Van Dam met as teachers at the Rotterdam Academy. In 1978, they decided to present themselves as a design team for environmental art. They recognised the possibilities of the computer at an early stage. They used the medium to discover new art forms, but also as an aid in the creation of spatial objects. Thanks to a programme they developed, every decision about form and colour could be checked for its visual effect. In 1985, Jansen initiated the computer graphics course in Rotterdam, the first in the Netherlands. Three years later, he became head of the faculty of Art, Media and Technology at the academy in Utrecht.
The duo's style is characterised by large yet slender objects that create movement when approached from different angles. Colour plays an important role in this. This is also the case in the blue arc, in which triangles seem to shift slowly in relation to each other and change colour. The rotation that arises is related to the metres high 'Ring of Möbius' that they realised for Leeuwarden.
The two called their creations 'Landmarks'.