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land art
goats in the thicket
When, in 1969, I was asked to make a proposal for one of the
enclosed gardens of the DSW building in
Dordrecht, Holland, I contemplated various possibilities. Some ideas
didn't seem very realistic at the time, but
they were interesting to think about. One idea I had might have made
is, if I had not thought is was too
simple. I thought of planting the space full of shrubs - thicket
actually. Their height was not to exceed the height
of the flat roof of the surrounding ground floor on three sides. The
front of the building has two stories; so from
that second floor one would look on top of the foliage - and not see
what was below. Upon descending down
the staircase to the main reception area with a two story window,
looking out into the interior garden, the
space below the foliage would become visible. This would be an open
interior space, cleared of foliage and
smaller branches - the maintenance being take care of by some goats,
which lived in that area. They would
continuously be browsing - eating the leaves, shoots and twigs of
shrubs. During my youth my parents took me driving to the forests;
between Groenekan and Hollandsche Rading, near Utrecht, I remember
seeing a pasture next to a part of the forest. The cows.
Because I was just starting my career as a sculptor in 1969 I didn't
have the experience necessary to make
daring and bold gestures. In art school, in Tilburg, the methods had
been quite traditional, with a heavy
accent on technical aspects of of old themes. We did, of course,
take notice of new developments in art, but
they were not really promoted in school. Right after leaving the
school in Tilburg I was admitted to the last year
at the Rotterdam Academy of Art, now the Willem de Kooning Academy.
This last year was actually a
practical year in which to prepare a final exhibition around your
own idiom, which was centered around my
sculptural forms in which I was fusing organic shapes with
mechanical forms.
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3D anaglyph photographs of my sculpture
works©author: Lucien den Arend
© 1998/present denarend.com
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