This piece, titled “Rungs to Rings” was selected by the Edina Art Center, city of Edina (Minneapolis metro) for the 2017–18 outdoor public sculpture exhibition. The eight foot high (325 lbs), welded, all-steel and powder-coated sculpture will be rented for a year starting in May. The piece will be placed on a twenty-inches high pedestal and elevated to a total height of almost ten feet.
Showing posts with label public art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public art. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
David Versluis | new work: Public Art Edina, Minnesota—Sculpture Exhibit 2017–18
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Ossip Zadkine: (re)considering the artist’s empathetic work — searching for “a true reality and a real truth”
Prometheus (1956), Bronze
Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967), Sculptor
Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris
photograph by © versluis 2010
Traditionally, Prometheus was ridiculed as the purveyor of good gifts to humankind — Zadkine’s Prometheus (in a beautifully subtle contrapposto pose) asks whether humankind is using the gift of fire for good or for ill. The consideration of Zadkine’s artworks again seem relevant in these disconcerting times.
One of the best reflections of Zadkine’s work was by Dutch artist, Henk Krijger (1913-1979). The following excerpt, subtitled, A christian style, is from Jan de Bree’s fine article, “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art / Patmos, 1969-1973”:
Krijger in his article Drie Overwegingen, discussed the christian artist and the development of a christian style. In his considerations he turned to the Russian sculptor, Ossip Zadkine, and showed how Zadkine’s work was important for the christian artist. According to Krijger, Zadkine, like so many other modern artists, experienced a cultural crisis. In his distress he searched for a ‘true reality and a real truth’ and broke through to the deepest deep, ‘the primordial state in which horror, fear and lostness were the characteristic emotions.’ Like Zadkine, the christian artist also was to break through to the deepest deep. The Christian had to break through the ‘schriftge leerden-wet or leer’ (the law or doctrine of Bible scholars) to the depths where prayer, the cry to God (an existential outburst) broke forth and a conversion took place. Going against the certainty of human knowledge and casting oneself upon God made the christian artist not a rebel against God, but a witness of the Word. He would be a witness of the Word in his own language, his christian art, with a true style. That is conversion.
The turning away from a kind of academic knowledge or dogma, as Krijger later called it, to an intuitive, emotional knowing was one of his main points in his view of art. …(1)
- de Bree, Jan. “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art/Patmos, 1969-1973.” Hommage `a Senggih: A Retrospective of Henk Krijger in North America. Ed. Jan de Bree. Toronto: Patmos Gallery, 1988. 25-26. Print.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Dordt College graphic design and printmaking student: Kwan Yong Park, South Korea
Kwan Yong Park
Untitled
Two-Color Linocut 2016
Several Dordt College art and design students, taking printmaking for the first time, recently had their artwork selected in a juried Regional Exhibition. Dabin Jeong, Youra Song, and Kwan Yong Park were among the twenty-five regional artists featured in Orange City Arts’ exhibit April 22–30, 2016 at the DeWitt Theatre Arts Center at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Jean Miotte: painting the spirit of Liberté
Jean Miotte, (b.1926)
(title is not known)
Wall mural in Paris
© Copyright Jean Miotte. All rights reserved
photographs by versluis, 2010
While in Paris we came upon this mural by the French / New York artist artist Jean Miotte. This large piece offers an element of surprise—the joy of encountering the unexpected in the urban environment.
Miotte mentions this about his work: “My painting is a projection, a succession of acute moments where creation occurs in the midst of spiritual tension as the result of inner conflicts. Painting is not a speculation of the mind or spirit, it’s a gesture from within.” (1)
In addition, a website dedicated to the work of Miotte states:
Coming from traditional painting Jean Miotte’s work is characterized by a constant and important development leading to very individual and personal forms. The works display a strong tension in their aim to discern human existence with its anguish but also with its happy moments, in his quotidian acts, in all its complexity. (2)
- Miotte. Chelsea Art Museum, Home of the Miotte Foundation, n.d. Web. 25 Feb. 2014. http://jeanmiotte.com/.
- Ibid.
A view of the mural. Read More......
Thursday, February 28, 2013
unity with variety: Frank Gehry, democracy, and the “the body language of the building” (1)
photo: © versluis 2011
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, completed in 2003, 111 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, California. Frank O. Gehry Associates, Frank Gehry, principal architect.
photo: © versluis 2011
Gehry has orchestrated the building’s exterior into an architectural wonder, which is inviting and accessible. In contrast to the exterior metal the interior space surrounds humanity with the warmth and lightness of curved forms and light-colored woodwork.
photo: © versluis 2011
This is a partial view of “A Rose for Lilly” fountain which is comprised of thousands of shards of delft blue-and-white porcelain. Gehry designed the fountain in the form of a large sculptural flower in honor of concert hall benefactor, Lillian Disney. The fountain is perfectly composed as one walks through the public garden around Disney Hall. The stainless steel exterior reflects the subtly colored environment and sky.
Thomas S. Hines in his 1991 essay about Frank Gehry and the initial design of Disney Concert Hall writes that the building suggests a flower metaphor and springtime optimism:
While the idea of the garden has literally expanded to envelope the whole site, the flower metaphor of the building itself has given way to nautical symbolism both inside and out. The wooden, scooped-out interior of orchestra and audience seating has the concave sweep of the outside of a boat, floating within the outwardly canted plaster walls of the hall. Outside, the stone panels [which became curved metal sheets] defining the building’s exterior form take on the buoyant quality of sails in full wind. Gehry and other observers believe it looks and feels “more musical” and will create a more dramatic and memorable effect than the original submission design. (2)
- Isenberg, Barbara. Conversations with Frank Gehry. first ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. 118. Print.
- Fifth International Exhibition of Architecture of the Biennial. Exhibition Catalog: “Peter Eisenman & Frank Gehry.” Hines, Thomas S. Rite of Spring: Frank Gehry and the Walt Disney Concert Hall of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1991. Print.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Sculptor Lyman Kipp: a master of trabeated structures
L: Lyman Kipp (b. 1929), Muscoot, 1967, Calvin College Campus, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Painted steel
168 h x 72 w x 48 d
This piece, characterized as a dolmen, was featured in a 1979 solo exhibition titled, The Work of Lyman Kipp, at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and is now in the Calvin’s permanent collection.
©Lyman Kipp, all image rights reserved. photograph by versluis 2013.
R: Muscoot (maquette), 1966, painted wood in original color scheme from a work included in the 1967 American Sculpture of the Sixties show in Los Angeles,
14 x 6 x 4 in. Image from Minus Space.
Earlier we published a piece about minimal sculpture and mentioned the 1966 exhibition, Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors,
Jewish Museum, New York. This seminal exhibition of the “New Art”
featured the works of Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Judy Chicago, Robert Smithson, and Lyman Kipp, to name just a
few.
L: Lyman Kipp, Zephyr, Sculpture Off the Pedestal Show, 1973, Grand Rapids
R: Study for Zephyr, 1973, Grand Rapids Art Museum
This rendering indicates the red and blue, automotive paint, color scheme of Calvin College’s Muscoot. Images from the Lyman Kip website.
This is the Sculpture Off the Pedestal exhibition catalog cover design (9¾"–12"), which is indicative of the International Style graphic design (so-called Swiss Style) and was the predominant graphic design style of corporate culture of the period. The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) published the catalog in 1973 as a didactic and guide for the exhibition. The catalog’s introductory essay was written by Barbara Rose. The catalog contained biographical notes about the artists and their exhibition histories and collections as well as 51 b&w illustrations and a map of the various sculpture locations throughout downtown Grand Rapids.
One of the reasons it was exciting being an art student in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the early 70s was because of this major outdoor sculpture exhibition displayed around the city. “In 1973, [the ambitious exhibition] Sculpture Off The Pedestal was organized by the Women’s Committee of the Grand Rapids Art Museum. This innovative exhibition installed contemporary large scale outdoor sculpture, by thirteen American artists, in public places throughout the city. The exhibition was supported by a grant from the NEA and won regional and national attention.”
The Grand Rapids Art Museum is currently displaying a few maquettes from the exhibition. The Sculpture Off the Pedestal exhibition offered a foretaste to the Meijer Sculpture Gardens and to the ArtPrize competition as public art venues.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
John August Swanson: POWER TO THE PEOPLE POSTER
Los Angeles based artist John August Swanson captures the look and feel of art in the streets. Poster, 24" x 36"— © John August Swanson 2008. Images and copy taken from John August Swanson’s website.
It is my hope that this art work might serve as an inspiration and a tool for those working to organize those who have been displaced & marginalized by economic injustice into compassionate communities empowered to implement justice and bring peace. —John August Swanson
At the left side of my serigraph, there is an employment agency with a long line of people waiting to sign on a waiting list. Our “Unemployed Man” is seen at the moment he writes down his name. He continues into the next panel, where he walks down the street, feeling alone and powerless, as he passes factories and office buildings with “No Jobs” signs posted.
He is standing outside an overcrowded hotel where he has just picked up a newspaper which announces a march, a gathering of many people, of many communities coming together to address their common problems.
He is the foreground figure in a huge gathering of people who have come together to call for quality universal healthcare, better schools, affordable housing, living wages, equal pay and job training. Many of their signs promote strength in unity, community organizing, and peace. This large group of people is positioned so that they march toward the viewer as if they are moving forward out of the picture.
Read More......
Thursday, September 6, 2012
“Look for deeper meanings in life and in art”: a report on artist Steve A. Prince’s visit to Dordt College, September 1-4, 2012
From a photo shoot of Steve A. Prince’s art exhibition at Dordt College. This photograph illustrates Steve standing next to Exodus: Bread from Heaven which is from the Old Testament series, 2012, 24 in. x 36 in., Linoleum Cut. Photos by Doug Burg.
Steve poses next to Job: Take me to the Water, also from the Old Testament series, Linoleum Cut. To the left is
Lamentations: Send your Rain, 2012, Linoleum Cut.
Student recollections (in their words) of quotes from Steve’s presentations:
- Be a Living Epistle
- Keep the light on!
- Be the Ecclesia — “the called out ones”
- MINE your business; dig deeper than the surface
- Confront life’s nastiness
- There are gaping wounds that need to be healed
- Old soil [the past] is doomed to be repeated unless addressed
- Your past may be stained but your future is untouched
Last Tuesday (9.4.12) Steve wrapped up his time at Dordt College as the First Mondays Speaker, visiting gallery artist, studio guest, and workshop leader. Steve has developed a reputation as an excellent and demanding teacher; he's continually producing artwork and commissions that have received international acclaim while managing a full schedule of gallery exhibitions, workshops, and lectures to audiences of all ages.
On Labor Day Steve spoke in the morning to a full house in the BJ Haan Auditorium and had his audience riveted. The afternoon was dedicated to a monoprint workshop with 18 participants. In the evening event Steve’s presentation was both powerful and profound. He went into more detail and deepened the themes of his morning lecture by showing a more complete body of his artwork. Steve is one of the finest storytellers I’ve ever heard and of great interest to me is the way in which he tells his narratives through visual art. Steve’s evening presentation was titled, “Second Line: The Art of Social Justice.” He began by showing a slide of one of his pieces in the Dordt exhibition titled, “Requiem for Brother John” and described the work which is based on the New Orleans funeral tradition of the dirge as a sad song for the one who has passed away. In Steve’s art the dirge is a metaphor for personal and communal sadness, corruption, and loss – the sad fact that things are not right in the world.
Then as a sure sign of hopefulness Steve followed his “Requiem” piece with the next piece called, “Second Line: Rebirth” in which he described the contrast as “cathartic”. In the New Orleans funeral tradition, after the mourning has taken place, the processional continues as a “Second Line” and becomes a celebration of the life of the one who has passed away. In the afterlife the person's life is made new and he/she is reborn. In Steve’s artwork, the “Second Line” is a metaphor for purification, liberation, and cleansing.
In several ways the themes of the “Dirge” and the “Second Line” are foundational metaphors in most of Steve’s work. His work is intense and challenging, symbolized by very strong black and white contrasts; every aspect of the compositions is full of meaning.
Steve has had a very positive impact on each community that he's been a part of and on those who view his work, as well. His artwork conveys the impact of the New Orleans storytelling tradition. Steve speaks sincerely from his heart and is genuinely interested in making the world a better place to live. Steve's abilities and talents are amazing and we were very fortunate to have him on campus.
Steve Prince’s visit to Dordt College was sponsored by the Andreas Center for Reformed Scholarship and Service. Read More......
Friday, June 29, 2012
Jaume Plensa’s, “The Crown Fountain”: breathing neighborly life into the city and viva the façade as computer screen
Jaume Plensa, The Crown Fountain, 1999–2004, Millennium Park, Chicago, Illinois. Photographs by versluis. Top: tandem photos indicating a south view and directly above is a north view.
The Crown Fountain in Chicago reminded me of a couple of appropos comments that provide interesting insights to the piece. The first is by Calvin Seerveld, Professor of Aesthetics, Emeritus, Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto. Seerveld has written the following:
A striking example of large-scale stewardship in art patronage is Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain (1999-2004) in Chicago’s Millennium Park. The two, 50-foot high towers of glass on which 1,000 different Chicago inhabitants’ faces are projected every thirteen minutes, smiling, slowly pursing their lips until a stream of water gushes out of their fountain mouths, preside over 2,200 square meters of black granite covered with a thin sheet (3 millimeters) of water. The wealthy Crown family has not sponsored an expensive piece of museum art plunked down somewhere (such as the Picasso and Miro sculptures a few blocks away) but has given a fortune for genuine public artwork that breathes neighborly life into the city—the distinguishing mark of real public artistry. [1]The second comment is by Zoë Ryan, the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design, Department of Architecture and Design, The Art Institute of Chicago. The following comment written by Ms. Ryan was not directly made about the The Crown Fountain, but her reference to Robert Venturi seems fitting when juxtaposed with Seerveld's comment:
Robert Venturi [has called for the integration of] “iconography and electronics that engage digital media as a significant element in architecture.” and going so far as to proclaim: “Viva the façade as computer screen!”[2]
- Seerveld, Calvin. “How Should Christians Be Stewards of Art?, A Response to Nathan Jacobs” Journal of Markets & Morality 12.2 (2009): 377-85. Web. 27 June 2012. Cf. Calvin Seerveld, “Cities as a Place for Public Artwork: A Global Approach,” in Globalization and the Gospel: Probing the Religious Foundations of Globalization, ed. Michael W. Goheen and Erin Glanville. Vancouver: Regent Press and Geneva Society, 2009, 53–80. Print.
- Ryan, Zoë, and Joseph Rosa. Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design. New Haven and London: The Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2010. 32. Print. Cf. Venturi, Robert, and Denise Scott Brown. Architecture as Signs and Systems. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004. 94-99. Print.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Herbert Matter’s 1955 History of Writing Mural for the Grosse Pointe Public Library
The Central branch of the Grosse Pointe Public Library was designed by architect Marcel Breuer and opened in 1953 in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. Shown (top is a vintage photograph of the library building that dates from the around the mid-50s. The image above is of Herbert Matter’s (1907–1984) History of Writing photomontage-mural for the Grosse Pointe Public Library, which was completed in 1955. This image is a clipping from a 1956 article in American Artist magazine written by Eugene M. Ettenberg. For the caption, Ettenberg summarized Matter’s project outline:
Matter’s mural, twenty-five feet long and nine feet high, for the new Grosse Pointe, Michigan Public Library designed by Marcel Breuer, portrays the history of the alphabet. Starting with the prehistoric stone scribblings, it follows the development of our letters through pictographs—cave drawings, hieroglyphs, Easter Island and Mayan markings—early communications from Crete, China, Arabia, and right up to the present-day letter form we term “Egyptian” to be seen on the locomotives and cars of the New Haven Railroad.
Detail images above are courtesy of the Grosse Pointe Public Library. Select image for a larger view.
According to library information, W. Hawkins Ferry felt it would be appropriate for the library to have art depicting the development of the written word (the idea was Matter’s concept) and commissioned Matter to do the mural. The mural, completed in 1955 for the adult reading room, is a photomontage—Matter’s preferred medium. The work displays a pattern of communication symbols and illustrates the evolution of writing from 12,000 B.C. It includes elements of Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese and the typeface of the Gutenberg Bible.
Above is a brief, hand-written correspondence from Matter to Breuer (1955) that accompanied the enclosure outlining the chronology of artifacts and elements within the mural. Apparently there were inevitable delays in completing the mural on time and in the note Matter thanks Breuer for his patience. This piece is in the Marcel Breuer Digital Archive, Syracuse University Library. [1]
- Matter, Herbert. Letter to Marcel Breuer: Mural for the Grosse Pointe Public Library. 1951-52 [1955]. Syracuse University, Syracuse. Web. 5 June 2012.
Image is courtesy of the Grosse Pointe Public Library. Read More......
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Daniel Burnham and the Dordt College east campus sculpture proposal
The illustrations above are renderings for a proposed Dordt College east campus sculpture in the grass area near Covenant Hall. The renderings are done in Solidworks and indicate the side view shown at the top and the viewer’s view shown beneath. Concept and design by David Versluis, all rights reserved. Illustration by William Morren.
The sculpture is entitled “Enlaced” and references Calvin Seerveld’s quote, “All creation is a burning bush of the Lord God.” The COR-TEN® steel sculpture will stand 7 feet wide x 18 feet high.
Working drawings for a campus sculpture are now finished and the piece is ready for fabrication. However, as the project is currently looking for funding, I’m reminded of this quote from the great Chicago architect, Daniel H. Burnham:
Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. [1]
- Thorne, Martha. Unbuilt Chicago. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004. 3. Print.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Chicago Pierscape Project: notes from team !melk’s public conversation at AIA Chicago—Monday 20 February 2012
In essence design team !melk’s proposal reiterates the City of Chicago’s motto: Urbs in Horto (“City in a Garden”) that correlates nicely to a cleaner, greener, sustainable city environment.
Principal designer Jerry van Eyck, co-founder of !melk flew in from New York City on Monday afternoon to discuss and synthesize the Chicago Pierscape Project proposal. Around 100 people came out for the event. Jerry, who is the point person for team !melk, opened the meeting at AIA Chicago by asking the question, “What is authentic architecture in Chicago?” For van Eyck a primary focus for the New Navy Pier was expressing the exceptional geology and iconic relationship of Lake Michigan to the city of Chicago. Team !melk members attending the meeting gave brief summaries of their ideas and their specific contributions to the project. They all seemed to view the New Pier as a grand gesture to developing inclusive art and an authentic public space in Chicago.
Water is the main feature of the proposal and the objective is to utilize the water approach in a visible and artistic way. The design is based on the analogies of the flow of water or watery surfaces and enlivening public space by “getting down to the water.” Van Eyck and other team members expressed emotional responses to water with such words and phrases as “rhythmical movement in waves,” “rippled concentric patterns,” “undulations,” “surges of activity,” “bursts of feeling,” and “oscillations of energy.”
Van Eyck emphasized that team !melk’s design was influenced by the principles of Charles Jencks, architectural theorist, landscape architect and designer of “Garden of Cosmic Speculation.” According to his website, Jencks is “known for his books questioning Modern architecture and defining its successors—Late, Neo and Post-Modern architecture.”
Charles Jencks writes:
To see the world in a Grain of Sand, the poetic insight of William Blake, is to find relationships between the big and small, science and spirituality, the universe and the landscape. This cosmic setting provides the narrative for my content-driven work, the writing and design. I explore metaphors that underlie both growing nature and the laws of nature, parallels that root us personally in the cosmos as firmly as a plant, even while our mind escapes this home.The Pier is where the primordial elements of land and water meet with the built environment. The complete proposal could be thought about as a garden design based on natural and scientific processes to achieve a celebration of nature and life. In many ways the team !melk proposal reflects van Eyck’s Dutch sensibility of reclaiming land from the sea—just like a celebration of the polderlands and water in the Netherlands. Read More......
Monday, November 7, 2011
Dordt College Classroom Building Sculpture Proposal
Photography and illustration by versluis © 2011
The illustration above shows the collaborative Dordt campus sculpture proposal for the exterior wall of the Ribbens Academic Complex Building (east elevation). The piece is tentatively called “Insignia” and it’s important that the work compliments both the architecture and the existing sculpture titled “The Gift” by Van Wyk. The collaboration consists of artwork by Jacob Van Wyk along with design and illustration by David Versluis. Proposed project materials and construction is a wall-mounted substrate of individually glazed stoneware tiles.
Interestingly, regarding collaborative process, architect Frank Gehry conveys this insight:
I collaborate with people on projects because it enriches the mix and gets you somewhere else that you wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise. When it’s really working, it is like holding hands and jumping off a cliff together.[1]
- Isenberg, Barbara. Conversations with Frank Gehry. First ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. 155. Print.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
M.C. Escher and the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Top photograph by versluis, 2004 — Credit for the close-up photograph below it is from SmitoniusAndSonata, all rights reserved.
Pictured above are ceramic tiles on the exterior wall of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. The design is based on M.C. Escher’s 1949 woodcut titled the “Regular Division of the Plane With Birds.” The piece commemorates the fact that M.C. (Maurits Cornelis) Escher (1898–1972) was born in Leeuwarden.
Escher felt that the regular division of the plane using contiguous shapes was one of the most interesting problems he dealt with. In an essay titled “Coloured Symmetry” Prof. H.S.M. Coxeter quotes Escher as saying:
“A plane, which should be considered limitless on all sides, can be filled with or divided into similar geometric figures that border each other on all sides without leaving any ‘empty spaces’. This can be carried on to infinity according to a limited number of systems.”[1]
Escher goes on to say this about his interest in the motifs of animal shapes:
“… My experience has taught me that the silhouettes of birds and fish are the most gratifying shapes of all for use in the game of dividing the plane. The silhouette of a flying bird has just the necessary angularity, while the bulges and indentations in the outline are neither too pronounced nor too subtle ….”[2]
- Coxeter, H. S. M. “Coloured Symmetry.” M.C. Escher: Art and Science. Ed. H. S. M. Coxeter, M. Emmer, R. Penrose, and M. L. Teuber. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1987. 15. Print.
- Ibid. 16.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Charis Exhibition, boundary crossings: a journey with direction
Roger Feldman
Pivots: Inside Passage
2009
Painted wood, metal straps, and stone
Site-specific installation at Calvin College
16’ x 12’ x 12’
photograph by versluis, 2011
Starting the middle of October Dordt College will be hosting the Charis Exhibition in the Campus Center Art Gallery. Charis is a Greek word meaning “Grace” or, essentially “goodwill on the part of the doer.” The exhibition was a collaborative art-making project in the summer of 2008 between selected North American artists and selected Indonesian artists. Interestingly, Dordt alumna, Krista (Koning) Krygsman designed the wonderful catalog which accompanies the show.
The piece pictured above is a full-scale version from a maquette, which was developed during the project — the maquette is in the show.
Professor Rachel Hostetter Smith, exhibition curator, writes in the introductory essay of the exhibition catalog, “Roger Feldman investigates the tensions that arise in this global economy as beliefs, values, and needs come into conflict with one another.” His Pivots series was produced in the context found in Indonesia through participation in the Charis Project.
Inside Passage was a commission and a cooperation of students and community members under Feldman’s direction to build the art piece on site. One may enter into the piece through an open passageway and walk through, encountering gentle obstacles which force a change in direction but leads to open spaces above and through to the other side.
A prominent painted exterior panel represents the bright Indonesian sky. In addition, here’s a description about the piece from Feldman’s website:
Three semi-circular walls join a geometric right-angled wall and refer to the four major world religions of Islam (green) [shown above], Hindu (yellow), Buddhist (orange) and Christian (white) faiths. The exterior does not reveal the interior experiences nor the sound component due to its orientation. An overhead bundle of poles tie the four religions together as they share a burden of co-existence.[1]
- Smith, Rachel Hostetter, ed. Charis: Boundary Crossings. Grand Rapids: Calvin College, 2009. 14. Print.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Frederickus Reinders and His Memorial Icons
Fred Reinders (1874-1959)
Liberty (after The Statue of Liberty)
painted cement
ca. 1945
photograph by versluis, 2011
This piece is one of several statues which can be found in Hospers, Iowa (pop. 690) on Main Street, in the Hospers Memorial Park (adjacent to the library and community center). The pieces were made by a local artist, Frederickus (Fred) Reinders, who wanted to commemorate the end of World War II in 1945. According to the local library’s website, “There was a formal dedication held on Saturday September 15, 1945.” About twenty-five years earlier Reinders had constructed an elaborate memorial in the middle of Main Street to memorialize the sacrifices of World War I.
It has been said that these statues are in the Folk Art tradition; however, the statues as well as other works by Reinders show a complexity that reveal some artistic training and cleverness. The charming look and naiveté of the pieces result from the rather rudimentary medium which Reinders had to work with.
To build the pieces Reinders modeled the figures in cement on an armature of steel and chicken wire mesh. The Liberty statue is positioned on the east side of the park but interestingly, that was not Reinders’ initial intention. The library’s website states that Liberty is “holding a torch that was to have lit the north end of the park. She clutches a book inscribed with the word LAW. For without law, liberty cannot be upheld.”
Here’s a brief biography of Reinders from the library’s website:
The Hospers Memorial Statues were built by Frederickus (Fred) Reinders. Reinders was born in Groningen Netherlands on December 18, 1874. Reinders was enrolled in an art school in the Netherlands at the age of six. He immigrated to the United States in 1893. Reinders first made his home near Platte, South Dakota. After a year or two of farming Reinders left the Platte area because of severe drought conditions and came to the Hospers area with his newlywed wife Jantje Dolphin Reinders. Fred Reinders went into business in Hospers as a house painter but soon discontinued the work due to health reasons. He then sold furniture and obtained a license as a mortician. In 1935, Reinders retired at the age of 61 and devoted his time to his hobby of portrait and picture painting and sculpting. Fred Reinders died on January 10, 1959 at the age of 84.The statues have been carefully restored by Dordt College Art Professor Jake Van Wyk and repainted by Dordt alumnus Josh Wynia. In fact, the dragon of war piece in the Memorial Park is a terra cotta recreation by Professor Van Wyk. Read More......
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