Introduction

By Dick van Broekhuizen 
(Conservator modern and contemporary art at the Sculptuurinstituut/Museum Beelden aan Zee)

Is there an equivalent in sculpture to the blank page or the untouched white canvas? I don’t think so, because manipulating material is the sculptor’s prerogative. The privilege, for example, to remove the wooden frame from the canvas, to use the slats as an armature for the folded fabric, and then suggest an object with it—perhaps a tent or a wedding dress: all this defines the sculptor’s method and demonstrates the power of their thinking. It is that intellectual force and unconventional use of imagination that lead to strong suggestion in the sculpture. And sculpture is always a presence in and of itself.

The artist is not merely a conduit to convey a philosophical idea to us in countless forms. No, the artwork is present as an object, fully alive in space. It affects the viewer. We, as spectators and artists, feel so involved with the artwork that it is experienced as a living entity. A work of art moves us. And all of that happens because the maker shaped the material in such a way that we are touched by it.

In Sculptural II, the artwork is a tangible object, but at the same time it represents an elusive, complex reality available from multiple perspectives. The six artists have each developed their own completely unique sculptural visual language. Their individual imaginations are, as it were, forced to present themselves together. This results in visual interaction and dynamic tension.

Caspar Berger continually enters into a dialogue with major art traditions. The Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck serves as the starting point for a work in which he makes the Lamb stare at us sinners even more intensely than was visible after the altarpiece’s restoration. Due to the strange mix of photography (eyes), text, and skeleton, the piece feels very modern.

Nick Ervinck’s abstractions evoke associations with organisms, with the stuff that dreams are made of. They are machines that offer our own projections and associations as much room as possible. Yet, due to their smoothness and artificiality, they also possess an untouchable quality. Not everything is driven by the brooding intensity of creative impulse or fears of death and sacrifice, as is the case with the sacrificial lamb.

Anne Wenzel’s work is, on objective observation, abstract, though made using recognizable elements. That’s because she aims to exquisitely suggest our own mortality. The objects ooze with age, have the color of eternity, and seem to be made of candle wax. Wenzel, too, engages with the old masters: she has created works after Géricault, Rubens, and Bacon.

Joke Raes can lose herself in the decorative forces of the past. Her sculptures have offshoots, seeds, leaves—they flow, are hairy, scaly, or cabbage-like. All these fertile, watery, and fluid metaphors of life force stand in contrast to the material used: ceramics. That water can be represented in hard-baked clay glazed in uncontrollable enamels is wondrous in itself.

Folkert de Jong composes materials into a cohesive sculpture. Seemingly cheerful forms emerge with him: laughter that masks tragedy, the discomfort of irony. Bright colors, industrial materials, the human figure in relation to the artificial object, but also the variety performer, the circus, the tinsel of the poverty-stricken clown—these can all be subjects.

Willem Boel is an object-maker with a strong painterly inclination. His canvas is the object, the image is painted. They may be nonsensical machines, metaphors for the artist’s work processes and for more general processes. Sometimes, they are alternated with paintings that the artist himself did not look at while making them.

Each artist in this exhibition accounts for their position in the world, within artistic traditions, and in relation to their personal life. The visual language is unique to each individual. Yet, many connections, associations, links, or intervisualities can be discerned. Does the artist begin with an empty mind, a bare stand, with nothing but the will to create a good sculpture? In a sense, yes—but I feel that these six have so much to express, that each of them starts every morning with a full mind, a studio packed with objects and materials, a technical skill worthy of deep admiration, and a determination so often lacking in other spheres of our society. Sculpture is vibrant, open to all human perspectives, capable of using all artistic means, and reveals itself in

/ a manically material way /
/ an ephemerally poetic way /
/ a personally humanistic way /
/ a wondrously crafted way /
/ a historically conscious way /
/...
(multiple answers possible)