On June 20, 2021, World Refugee Day, Mayor Aboutaleb unveiled a new artwork by British artist Gavin Turk at the head of Wilhelminapier. The artwork is a more than 3.5 meters high open door made of green and red painted bronze. The door has a door handle and keyhole also cast in bronze. L’Âge d’Or, as the artwork is called, stands right across the street from the future Fenix Museum. The head of the Wilhelminapier is a fitting location, because in the 19th and 20th centuries more than three million land movers left from Rotterdam’s quays to the other side of the world. From all over Europe, they departed from Rotterdam and set out for a new life. L’Âge d’Or symbolizes hope, dreams and opportunities like a door that is always open. A door without a building, but as a symbolic transition between two imaginary worlds, one old and one new. L’Âge d’Or is the sixth in a unique series of eight artworks, where all the doors have a different color, shape and handle. The door is reminiscent of René Margritte’s painting La Victoire. The title L’Âge d’Or (Golden Age) is a reference to Luis Bunuel’s surrealist film of the same name.
Year
2021
Location
Wilhelminapier
Dimensions
1.57 x 3.58 m
Material
bronze
Client
Fenix Landverhuizersmuseum
Owner
Fenix Landverhuizersmuseum
The location
The head of the Wilhelminapier is a fitting location. From Rotterdam’s quays over three million land movers left for the other side of the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. From all over Europe, they departed from Rotterdam and set out for a new life. L’Âge d’Or at the chosen location symbolizes hope, dreams and opportunities like a door that is always open. A door without a building but as a symbolic transition between two imaginary worlds, one old and one new. Everyone is welcome to step through the door and fantasize about the future.
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk (1967) has pioneered many forms of contemporary British sculpture now taken for granted, including the painted bronze, the waxwork, the recycled art-historical icon and the use of waste in art.
Turk’s installations and sculptures deal with issues of authorship, authenticity and identity. Concerned with the ‘myth’ of the artist and the ‘authorship’ of a work, Turk’s engagement with this modernist, avant-garde debate stretches back to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp.
With Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, among others, Gavin Turk is counted among the Young British Artists.
