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In Retrospect - texts
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notes on the exhibition "in retrospect" by Lucien den Arend
This exhibition shows my works and studies made over a period of thirty years.
It is subdivided into the motives with which I have been concerned ever since I
made my first sculptures. These do not pertain to everyday life or the topics of
our time; my interest lies within the geometry of construction. The emotion is
of secondary importance, also for my inspiration. There is all the room for it
after a work is finished. While there is a clear chronological development in my
work, the prevailing impulses never cease to show me new directions, nor am I
ever finished with them. They don't have any order, and different ones exist at
the same time. Sometimes I take up earlier motifs. The exhibition focuses on my
free sculptures. However, to give a comprehensive insight in my oeuvre, examples
of my environmental work are represented in this publication.
My work has always provided me with the incentive to develop new ideas,
frequently based on aspects which are not put into it intentionally. I discover
them along the way.
In effect, almost every work is a mutation of its predecessor. At one moment it
is a curved contour that inspires me to make a variant. Another time it could be
the basic structure itself, which is the carrier that organizes and delimits a
work. These frameworks are almost always orthogonal systems. Superficially my
work seems to have two streams because of this, which also happens with my
environmental projects. The materials and characteristics out of which they are
made up are incomparable to the traditional sculptor's medium. But under the
surface there is a course set out by my work itself.
introduction to my life and work
a concise autobiography
A few months before we emigrated to America, during the flood of 1953, my
parents and I were living in a fourth story flat next to a dike in my birthplace
Dordrecht, Holland. On the other side of the dike, well below us, the water
level was near its top. Somewhere on the bottom of this temporary sea I always
played and built huts using willow branches. Aside from being encouraged to draw
like other children are, I was not aware of any talent in this direction. I do
remember being annoyed by adults who compelled me to take a needle and prick
holes in the contours I had just drawn in order to be able to tear the forms out
of the paper. A reproduction of van Gogh's flowering apple tree and a few
original paintings, two of which were by Cor Noltée, an artist who lived in
Dordrecht during the greater part of his career, were my only contact with art.
One was of river barges in a canal in Dordrecht; the other of the inside of a
workshop. These paintings came along to southern California where we settled. In
1956 we returned to my birthplace for a vacation. The barges were still in the
canal and I enjoyed the idea of time standing still. As this trip turned out to
last six months we rented part of a house with the back side standing in the
same canal that was depicted in Noltée's oil painting. Only it was the other end
across from the Grotekerk, a gothic church. It was immense compared to the
Lutheran church next to the house where I was born. This recollection must have
inspired me to make my first sketch out of the window. Only, it was not of the
church, but of some old houses standing to the right of it in the water. Another
one was done in the back of my aunt and uncle's house, who also had a cigar
store, like my parents did before we moved to the dike. These sketches were for
me a tangible recollection of the atmosphere of the old country. When I was
sixteen I made a copy in oil paint of the Noltée. When we returned to Holland
with the intent to stay there, I sought contact with him and visited often after
that. Before two years were over my father had to go back to California for
work, so my mother and I came along. We bought a house in Long Beach near the
ocean. I went to college and decided to major in art. I took courses in ceramics
and enjoyed that more than drawing and painting. in a foundational course in art
we had to make a plaster sculpture. I made a reclining figure which incorporated
two extremes; I combined mechanical and organic forms, focusing on solving the
transition between the two. It seemed to be such a success that my teacher came
to claim it for the school when we were packing for our final return to Holland.
This was right after I received my 1A classification for the armed service, and
I preferred Europe above Vietnam.
At California State I had met Joop Beljon who participated in what was the first
sculpture symposium in America. The concrete elements he was constructing there
next to the parking lot were for me something new, but it was very exciting to
say the least. Back in Holland I bought his book bouwmeesters van morgen which
could be translated best as tomorrow's architects. It aroused my interest in a
much broader field that what I knew as sculpture. I also read a book by Isamu
Noguchi about his work. Which showed me the possibilities of environmental
sculpture. At the same time I had made my first large bronze sculpture. This
discoid form stood like a disk in the process of rolling. A year later I was
given the opportunity to realize a garden and fountain. The city architect of
Dordrecht had seen my first sculpture exhibition in the office of architect Jan
Dicke, and asked me to make a sculpture on the edge of a pond in one of the
inner gardens of the DSW plant in Dordrecht. At the same time he gave me the
possibility to make a proposal for the pond itself, and added that, if I wanted,
I could design the garden also. For me it was clear from this moment on, that it
would be rather dualistic to make a garden and on top of that a sculpture. So,
ever since that time I have been doing environmental and landscape projects. But
I have never stopped making sculptures. Because for me there is no hard division
between techniques how different they may seem.
about my work
When I started painting from nature in the sixties, abstraction was a result of
my technique and materials, the brush stroke being more important than what is
depicted. Up to the present day This still applies. Geometric abstraction was at
first a means in my work but by concentrating on the construction it became an
end in itself. That what was once implicit became explicit, the results
increasingly becoming witnesses to the means, evidence of a process. With this
shift of interest I began to re-evaluate my method and theory of construction,
whether it be an environment, a sculpture, architecture or a bridge.
Until about 1972 a solid plasticity enveloped most of my works but at the same
time the linear and planar aspects came to the foreground. This different, more
open, approach changed the technique and use of material; even the material
itself changed. Before, I worked in bronze via constructions in steel and
tensile materials which I filled in and coated with plaster. The constructive
phase determined the appearance of the result. Now I work directly in the
material showing the construction of a concrete idea, eliminating and avoiding
the superfluous. My works are no longer solid. They have opened up, having no
interior. My environmental work shows the same development taking into account
the somewhat conceptual aspect of for instance the Pieter Janszoon Saenredam
Project, or Merging Grids, an homage to Cor Noltée. Together with this post
impressionist, who died more than twenty years ago, I used to paint in the
marshlands called the Biesbos. In 1991 I organized and participated in a
symposium in this area. In an existing osier bed I planted four meter long
willow rods in a stringent system of squares. The title of this work refers to
the incongruity between my contribution and the original arrangement of the
randomly planted original willows. I accentuated my grid by peeling the bark off
the tops of the newly planted branches leaving about half the length. Below the
peeled part new branches grew. Eventually the geometrically perfect grid will
merge with the random one, and the result will be almost invisible.
the motives
My work evolves within thematic constructive principles. One can discern two parallel, or rather interwoven, developments: the chronological line as well as the thematic one. The critical dates in or around which a certain thematic facet aroused my attention are listed chronologically. Per theme the works illustrated are in the order of production. In cases where more motifs are incorporated in one work, I have chosen the one that pertains most to that which moved me to make it.
organic versus mechanical form, 1965-
The transition between these two poles was the part that I was interested in
solving. At that time my works were closed, solid forms. Some of my first
sculptures were inspired by details of bones.
It was the shape and the surface that had my attention. The plasticity and the
texture were the direct result of the linear movement of my hands and tools. I
didn't want to make shapes that could only be made with tricks or gimmicks.
Within a few years all texture disappeared and the surfaces became taut and
polished.
orthogonal construction, 1967-
I did not at first consciously make use of mathematics and geometry in the process of realizing my ideas. The scientific approach was, certainly at that time, not a goal in itself. Instinctively, though, I consistently obeyed natural laws. In other words, every step in making a work had to be a logical one, certainly not resulting from feeling, contrary to what my teachers used to stress; for them even the measurements of, for instance, a base were supposed to be a matter of feeling; all matters pertaining to composition, scale, color and placement were to be solved intuitively, they insisted. I wanted rules, so, first of all, I rejected composition: still at school one of my teachers declared me crazy for calculating the volumes of boxes we were to make and assemble into a composition. I wanted these to be equal while their dimensions varied, attempting to exclude arbitrariness. The result was my first orthogonal construction.
compound forms, 1968-
In my avoidance of please yourself composition I have always been persistent. This is why my work never existed out of more than two parts combined in such a way that they formed a unity. 'Three is a composition', I reasoned. Now I think that the same motivation that had me combining two extremes in my earlier work, drove me to work with two shapes now, making them into a unity. The difference being that these two units were now identical. At first their sizes and exact shapes differed slightly, but during the years that followed pairs and the symmetry between them became more important.
towards more geometrical concepts, 1968-
My work in this period consisted of curved contours stretching an imaginary film
between them. These saddle shaped surfaces intrigued me from the beginning. It
was very exciting to imagine 'flying' over these with a motion picture camera
and filming the subtle but calculated movements. The geometry of the contours
still had an organic sense to them. The opening of a snail shell, for instance,
I reasoned, wasn't a perfect circle either. But what I demanded of the interplay
between the contours, did indeed need a more calculated approach. Otherwise it
was more like a free for all; a little more, a little less, but why not just
right?
My sculptures no longer have a bottom or construction keeping them upright. They
can have any position, and are to be seen as free forms in space.
In this year I made a single work consisting of four identical forms. Each was
assembled from two congruent ellipses which were rolled to such a shape that
they could be united, the concave sides facing each other, after turning one of
them ninety degrees; something like cupping your hands. It took me four years to
pick this up again.
In the early seventies I was experimenting with curved lines on imaginary
planes, assembling them in such a way that the movement of one line continued in
the other while the planes in which they were at angles with each other. It is
hard to pinpoint an exact date as the first trials were only preliminary studies
for constructing plastic forms, and later, planar constructions. The geometry
became more important every step of the way.
environment, 1969-
The first time I was asked to design the direct surroundings of a sculpture I
was still to make, it was clear to me that this would be rather dualistic. It
was of course very logical to 'sculpt' the totality.
Looking back I think that this must have satisfied my need for working with the
less predictable, and the organic aspect shifted from my sculptures to my
environmental works.
length and axis, 1971-
The location where I realized the Walburg project was a long stretch of land. In
preliminary sketches I studied long shapes; I chose for a meandering dike,
constructed between two diverging lines on which the centers were projected. The
main items making up the totality were centered on the axis between the lines.
In 1982, spiral pointed in this direction. Later I made Europa and wave.
Contrary to the meandering dike where there is the underlying construction,
their parts are the construction lines themselves.
In my environmental works these aspects are more easily made explicit and
utilized.
When the construction is based on mathematical and geometric principles, an axis
easily results.
I don't think that the element axis itself is of any influence in my work to
this day. They are secondary elements for me. For instance: the perpendicular
cylinders series have two axes in one work rotated perpendicular to each other.
the intermediary stages, 1972-
It often happens during the process of working that I am tempted to stop at a point and keep what I have. Sometimes that is possible but usually - sculpture being a slow process - it will necessary to finish what you are doing. A few times I actually stopped. It changed my work drastically when I interrupted of the production of double torus and saved perpendicular cylinders.
he linear aspect, 1973-
In my earlier work I concentrated on the contours wanting them to be sharp and
distinct. Soon I was making polished sculptures. The reflections tend to make
the form lighter and follow the plasticity up to the edges, making them
stronger. I didn't realize that then, but the results pleased me.
In pursuance of these sharp contour lines I started to experiment using thin
wires and casting them in acrylic blocks so they would hold their shape. They
were to be as thin as possible, like a drawing. The forms they enclosed were
eliminated. Another approach towards having lines be spatial was by engraving
circles and ellipses on curved planes of glass.
At the same time I rediscovered that these linears could also be regarded as the
intersections of rolled planes, and I started making sculptures from rolled
steel sheets. The year before, perpendicular cylinders was conceived by chance.
It helped show me the way.
opening up the planes, 1976-
Of course, in working with sculpture, making the moulds or assembling the different components of a work, one sees many possibilities. In most cases a hollow work is at one stage an open piece. But to conceive a work where the inside forms a visible unity with the whole was for me a big step and very exciting. I feel there is always some daring involved. The first works were the planes, junction series. This was a step towards making the construction the aim of a work.
discontinuance, 1976-
The works in which the continuous linear movement would be interrupted at a point where the curved lines intersect, were the discontinued continuity series. Later I made Brenda, Europa, wave and c.y.f.
gravity as determining factor, 1982-
By eliminating two of the four elements of perpendicular cylinders leaving the other two, gravity pulls the resulting object into a new position. I named it gravitation. My first discoid forms were placed slanting as if they were in motion and pulled by gravity. It could have been a little more or less. That wasn't the case any more in the time I made gravitation. But I must confess that even later, I placed 2.2.3D2 out of balance in order to suggest resisting gravity.
construction as goal, 1983-
I have evolved from making sculptures where the method of construction was only
a necessary step to the final result. Sometimes very interesting phases were
lost. Increasingly this displeased me and at one moment this accumulated to a
point where I decided to focus my attention on the construction itself. I think
it could be compared to music: the performance itself is the what it's all
about, not the feeling one retains after it's finished.
In 1983 I was one of the sculptors asked by the National Road and Transport
Department of my country to do a study on art and the highway. Instead of
working out a plan for placing sculpture or paintings alongside of the road, be
it that they would be lengthened, I found that comparing it to a score in music
would be the only appropriate thing to do. The moving observer would witness the
events when they happened. I submitted various suggestions as to how this could
be done. But the committee chose for a more conventional solution.
re-evaluated objects, 1988-
During the course of working with sculpture there have been products that I did not make with the intention of presenting them as art; such as trials and models made for production purposes or even pieces which resulted in the process of making another work. aurora borealis and flight are two examples of this.
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