Denver Justice Center Campus and Civic Center District
Rembrandt
In 2002 I made a a site specific project which I titled
trajectory for Rembrandt. The presence of three old oak trees on the grounds
of the Groeneveld Castle in Baarn, The Netherlands, reminded me of
Rembrandt's etching three trees of 1643.
I made a curved array willows which were to be
pollarded every three years. Rembrandt's landscape works often portray these
willows.
The bold strokes of his pen, crayon or etching needle have
always had my respect - a respect for his swift and confident technique. When
working on the trajectory project I contemplated making spatial
interpretations of his drawn lines when the time would come. This year it
was four hundred years ago that Rembrandt van Rijn was born.
When starting to work on a proposal, I look for an incentive.
A motivation helps to get the gray cells working. So I've been reading up on the
history of Denver. While I was in Denver for the presentation of the plans, I'd seen the street called
Wynkoop and deducted that this must have something to do with Dutch wine
merchants 'wijnkopers' and sought for connections which weren't there. Soon though I discovered it was named after Edward
Wynkoop, and read stories from various points of view as to his part in shaping the
history of Denver. Maybe I had hoped to be able to make some connection to
Rembrandt's Holland. Then I thought why should Rembrandt's lines be less
of an incentive than the Arapaho, buffalos or the gold rush?



