Artwork Data

Title

Plastiek

Artist

Rudi Rooijackers

Year

1969

Material

beton

Dimensions

h. 240 cm

Artwork Location

Address

Mozartlaan, Den Haag

City district

Loosduinen

GPS data

52.058342969766, 4.2298265368101 View on map

Artwork Description

Text

This sculpture was intended in the 1960s as 'a play sculpture with delightful corners for children'. At the time, it was a relatively new phenomenon to ask artists to design a play object. Rooijackers was a member of Verve in the fifties (1951-1957) and in the sixties and seventies a teacher/coach at the Free Academy in The Hague. The artists' association Verve owed its name to its vision that more 'verve' was needed to appeal to the viewer's imagination. The artist had a stimulating and also socially binding task in this respect. At the Vrije Academie, a similar adage applied: the new so-called 'design mentality'. This meant that artists had to create new forms and no longer imitate. Rooijackers was able to express many of these views in the play object.

The leaden concrete sculpture weighing more than twenty tonnes originally stood on the small square in the middle of the Alphons Diepenbrockhof shopping centre. It was surrounded by benches and trees. Unfortunately, after a while it was defaced with graffiti and at some point the 'delightful corners' were also used for purposes other than those intended. When the square was redesigned in 2006, the work of art was moved to its current location: a quiet little field under the trees.

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