Essays Archieven - Sculpture International Rotterdam

A game of combative aspirations

Wilma Sütö Like a huge sundial the sculpture stands on the quay; its shadow casting a capricious line ahead. It is a new beacon in Rotterdam: The Plait by Kalliopi Lemos. The sculpture reaches up…

Let’s Go

Jeroen Boomgaard So there they stand. Two feet, created by Ben Zegers. They are very big, quite a presence here at one of the busiest locations in Rotterdam. They have been positioned just like the…

Let’s Go

Jeroen Boomgaard So there they stand. Two feet, created by Ben Zegers. They are very big, quite a presence here at one of the busiest locations in Rotterdam. They have been positioned just like the…

Dow Jones Dow Jones

Mark Poysden I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.

Tom Morton: Commission

In his 2010 film Commission, Erik van Lieshout is faced with a problem. Having agreed to make a work in response to the Zuidplein mall in Rotterdam South – a poor suburb of the city…

It’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry

Around 7.5 billion years from now, the sun will destroy the Earth. If humanity’s descendants still populate this planet (an increasingly unlikely scenario, given how enthusiastically we are hastening our own extinction), they will be…

Commission

In his 2010 film Commission, Erik van Lieshout is faced with a problem. Having agreed to make a work in response to the Zuidplein mall in Rotterdam South – a poor suburb of the city…

Le Tamanoir

Thanks to its title, the sculpture is recognizable as an anteater, with its high back and typical tubular snout touching the ground, nosing. Without this title, the sculpture could be an abstract construction and the…

Cascade

And there stands the sculpture by Atelier Van Lieshout: a dark green tower of oil drums, photographed at dusk and surrounded by the economic heart of the city. This sombre photo was the opening slide…

The Farewell

In Umberto Mastroianni’s The Farewell two highly abstract figures are fused to form a compact mass. The couple consists of segment-like and angular planes, in which intermingled legs, torsos, arms and heads can only be…

The Footballer

Henk Chabot, mainly known as a painter, but who was also very active as a sculptor in the 1920s and 1930s, profited during the Depression from Rotterdam’s increasing interest in embellishing the city with sculptures.

Erasmus

Few Rotterdammers will be aware that the finest statue in Europe (as art historical literature has sometimes claimed) stands in the square in front of St. Lawrence Church; it depicts the most famous Rotterdammer of…

Wall Relief no. 1

Henry Moore trained at the Leeds School of Art and in 1921 obtained a scholarship to study at London’s Royal College of Art. There he discovered the work of artists including Picasso, Brancusi and the…

Wilhelmina

Baroness Charlotte van Pallandt – although she was raised in an extremely protective setting – was allowed to take painting lessons with Albert Roelofs, son of the well-known painter Willem Roelofs. In 1919 she married…

Untitled

The work of Richard Artschwager is generally grouped either with Pop Aart or with Minimalist and Conceptual art. Although none of these attempts at classification are entirely conclusive, neither are they completely arbitrary. For example,…

The Destroyed City

The Destroyed City is without doubt Rotterdam’s best-known sculpture. It also occupies a special place in the oeuvre of its maker Ossip Zadkine. Not only is it his largest sculpture but it is one of…