Artwork Data

Title

Vier zuilen

Artist

Els de Groot

Year

1978

Material

IJzer

Dimensions

h. 179 cm

Artwork Location

Address

Aagje Dekenlaan, Den Haag

City district

Escamp

GPS data

52.0505895497102, 4.29355894433705 View on map

Artwork Description

Text

Sculptor Els de Groot has left several traces in the public space of The Hague. Apart from her temporary art project 'De ontstelde ruimte' (The disturbed space), these are all geometric abstract sculptures. So too in the central reservation of Aagje Dekenlaan. De Groot has placed four geometric forms there, opposite Jan Luykenlaan. Two of the four iron 'columns' display the external characteristics of broad three-dimensional diagonals that seem to intersect from a certain angle of view. The other two columns are in fact triangles that actually fulfil an angular function.

Together, the four sculptural elements form a group of geometric forms that suggest a space and mark a place. The group of sculptures is characteristic of the abstract sculptures that appeared all over the Netherlands in the 1970s and 1980s in the roadside verges and motorways. It is also typical of De Groot's sculptures from the 1970s. A decade later, her sculptures become less severe and she adds colour. She also started to use materials other than metal.

De Groot not only makes art, she is also active in general. Together with her colleagues Karin Daan and Christa van Santen and the art historians Liesbeth Brandt Corstius and Josine de Bruyn Kops, she set up the Stichting Vrouwen in de Beeldende Kunst (SVBK) in 1977 with the aim of improving the socio-economic position of women artists through research, documentation and exhibitions. To make the work of women 'visible', a visual documentation file was set up, among other things. In cooperation with the International Association for Women in the Arts (IAWA), the exhibition Art Beyond Barriers was organised in 1989 in the Frauenmuseum in Bonn. De Groot was one of the six participants representing the Netherlands.

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