Land art and site specific sculpture - land art uses the environment and its scale as its material. Concrete art is expressed in material itself with which the artist introduces her non-representational objective. Public art can be viewed and accessed by observers.
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proposal sketches for Nilai Memorial Park

Kuala Lumpur opening page | sound barrier meander | island ship | cremation stone field or mound | land art | sculpture

biography Lucien den Arend

Portrait of Lucien den Arend 2012.

Lucien Armand Marco den Arend (Lucien den Arend) December 15, 1943 Dordrecht NL California State University, Long Beach California USA; Academy of Visual arts Tilburg NL; Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam NL Land artist and geometric abstract sculptor. His public art projects range from site-specific sculptures to land art.

Lucien den Arend lived in Dordrecht, the Netherlands until 1953. That year is father, mother and he emigrated to the United States, where they settled in Los Angeles California, where het spent his formative years. Between 1964 and 1966 he studied art and Russian at California State University, Long Beach, where during the summer of 1965 the first international sculpture symposium in the United States was organized on its campus. There he made friends with Joop Beljon, who was the participating sculptor from the Netherlands. After returning to the Netherlands he continued his art studies in 1966 at the Academy of Visual arts Tilburg, studying for an Nht teaching degree. After finishing his studies there, he attended the last year of studies at the sculpture department of the Rotterdam Academy of Art – now the Willem de Kooning Academy; upon finishing his studies there in 1970, the Rotterdam Art Foundation awarded him the ‘drempelprijs’ for his accomplishments in the field of sculpture in that year. Later he taught at the Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam and At the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague with Joop Beljon who was its director.

In 1969 he received his first commission for an land art project in Dordrecht NL. At that time his visiting card read “Environmental Sculpture". He used this term for sculpture that went beyond making a sculptural object for a specific environment, later to be called site-specific sculpture, using the materials of- and until the environment itself had become the piece. Presently the terms site-specific- and environmental art cover both. He incorporated elements that we know from our environment bringing them together and conjoining them to form a new whole. He usually employs natural materials but introduces artifacts as well. His first environment was an enclosed garden for a social workplace in Dordrecht, DSW. In 1971 he made another land art piece, the Walburg Project which he incorporated into an agricultural landscape, in the town of Zwijndrecht NL. Up to now he has made site-specific projects in more than 55 municipalities mainly throughout northwestern Europe and has made proposals for various cities in Europe, the United States and China.

In the early seventies he met Henry Moore several times during his trips to Forte Dei Marmi, where he worked at Henraux Stone Yards in Querceta Italy. With him he discussed the area of site-specific sculpture and the overlapping area of environmental sculpture.

From the early seventies he became a member of and was active in various local and international artists' associations, advisory committees for public art in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other municipalities in the Netherlands. chairman of the stipend committee of the Dutch Ministry of Culture in 1982 and 1983 and chairman of the Dutch Sculptors' Association from 1984 to 1986, preceded and followed by two periods of eight years in which he was its secretary. He organized international exhibitions and symposia of sculpture such as in 1983 the "East West Forum" (Japan and The Netherlands) and the first biennials in POAM: "Outside-In" - an exhibition of Finnish sculptors and painters and "North Sea Black Sea" symposium and exhibition in the context of the cultural exchange between Bulgaria and the Netherlands. Since the eighties he participated in various international sculpture symposiums in Finland, Switzerland, France, Germany and Turkey. In the Drechtsteden Area of the Netherlands he realized his plan for an international sculpture park, OPAM, which was opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1996. In 1999 Queen Beatrix and the Bulgarian King Simeon II opened Black Sea|North Sea, a symposium and exhibition of five Bulgarian sculptors in OPAM. He received the Knight of Madara (Madara Horseman) decoration from the President of Bulgaria in 1998. In 2004 he started the organization of his second international sculpture park FOAM (Finnish Open Air Museum) in Finland to which country he moved in 2003. He now lives and works in Kangasniemi, Finland where a collection of his sculptures is permanently exhibited on the grounds of Penttilä, an old estate in the Saimaa Lake District. He named the sculpture park POAM (Penttilä Open Air Museum). Before and since he moved to Finland he has been invited to travel to Germany, Finland, Switzerland, the United States and the far east various times to present proposals for site-specific sculpture and land art projects as well as to lecture on his public art projects.

Kuala Lumpur opening page | sound barrier meander | island ship | cremation stone field or mound | land art | sculpture


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