Sculpture International Rotterdam

The Sculpture

1989 stands for the year when the Hillekop residential tower block, designed by Mecanoo, was built in Rotterdam South. Körmeling marked this date with green neon numbers on the roof of the apartment block. The work was commissioned by the Rotterdam Centre for the Visual Arts (CBK) in consultation with Stichting Tuinstad Zuidwijk (Zuidwijk Garden City Foundation). Körmeling regularly works with neon on buildings and in public spaces. Another permanent work by Körmeling in the public domain of Rotterdam – 'Pioneer House' (2000) – is placed on the roof of the customs office in the Port area, where it responds explicitly to its 'carrier' – the customs building designed by the architects Benthem & Crouwel. Körmeling’s modest house – sober in its rectangular simplicity, 'equipped' with a front porch – reminds us of the building style of the improvised settlements in the American Wild West, and recalls a time in which the Frontier stood for freedom and adventure, where borders seemed to exist for the sole purpose of breaking and crossing them.

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