patio #4
DSW Dordrecht Holland 1969 - a first sketch
my first letterhead 1969
"Environmental art incorporates the
materials which make up our environment as well as man-made
objects. In this way it assimilates its environment
while remaining distinct. The 'art' of making environmental
art is being able to 'sculpt' the environment itself,
without creating an entity which could be relocated
to any other environment; Gutzon Borglum's Mount Rushmore
sculpture being environmental sculpture is probably
a matter of debate. But any sculpture 'en plein air' is not by definition environmental art."
Read more on my views on
environmental art.
ENVIRONMENTAL
ART IN
HOLLAND AND
FINLAND
The Dutch term 'omgevingskunst", a direct translation
of 'environmental art' does justice to how the term
should be understood. This also counts for the Finnish
term 'ympäristö taide', which on the other hand has
gotten a completely different meaning. 'Ympäristö' is
the Finnish word for 'environment' and 'taide'
is 'art'. But, whenever sculpture is permanently installed
in nature - very often next to new stretches of highway
- it is referred to as 'ympäristö taide'. Some of the
works actually are conceived as environmental artwork.
During the sixties the Dutch sculptor,
Hans Petri made environmental projects in which
he did include sculptural shapes by his hand; but the
totality was the sculpture - the environmental sculpture.
He used trees, natural stones, asphalt and grasses.
Some other artists were designing environments at that
time; but the attention became focused on the so called
Arnhemse School, which was a group of verbally
well educated artists who graduated from the Arnhem
Art School. They had been prepared and professionally
equipped for dialogue with politicians and civil engineers.
In their virtuosity of terminology they left other artists
far behind. Their work was so integrated with the built
environment, that it was not easy to see where it ended
or began. The Arnhem School used the same concrete tiles,
bricks and other elements from of which the urban environment
had been constructed for decades. The work of landscape
designers was actually much more interesting.
In Finland, on the other hand, ympäristötaide (ympäristö taide = environmental
art) is more and more interpreted as taide (art) in
the ympäristö (environment). I participated in a competition
for ympäristö taide in Muotiala, a suburb to be built
in Tampere, one of the larger cities in Finland. Having
learned that the town was actually looking for art in
the environment, I complied and made a proposal for
large sculptural elements which made use of the slope
of the terrain. Muotiala sculptural elements gratefully
make use of the space offered by the environment, but
I do not call this an environmental sculpture."
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environmental art
"In 1969 I received my first commission which enabled me
to do more than place a sculpture on a given location.
During that period I was not in a situation where there
was any original natural landscape in which I could have
felt a need to recreate it. In the middle of the sixties
I had moved back to Holland, which is a totally man made
environment a lived environment - the last existent Dutch
wilderness had been cultivated in the middle of the nineteenth
century. So any natural environment was created in a partnership
between man and natural forces. It is either a joining of
forces or an opposing of forces, as is the case in the battle
against water.
In 1968 my first commission had been to make a bronze sculpture
for the interior of a public utility building. A year later
I was asked to do a sculpture for an interior garden at
a vocational rehabilitation and employment plant (DSW in
Dordrecht, Holland). The Architect, Dirk Hol, had projected
an
'L' -shaped pond among other things.
He suggested I make a sculpture in the corner of the 'L'.
I asked whether I could make proposals for other elements
in the garden. He said that I could actually do the whole
garden. This was the opening which gave me the possibility
to do much more than only adapt the direct surrounding of
my sculpture to it. The year before, I had already dispensed
with the idea of bases for my sculptures.
So this gave me an opportunity to make a total environment,
using more than only sculptural elements. During my meeting
with Henry Moore in
1970 in Forte Dei Marmi, Italy I showed him pictures of
the DSW environmental project and asked for his ideas on
environmental art as I was developing it. He very much appreciated
the fact that the water columns were going to be made by
me; he felt the need to include sculptural elements which
have been made by the sculptor. They at least should be
designed by him. He told me that he had some problems with
some of the environmental art projects by Isamu Noguchi.
Though I maybe did not realize it at the time, I do believe
it is possible to make environmental art using elements
and resources from our environment, be it natural or man-made
artifacts"
Lucien den Arend
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