Untitled (1957)

Naum Gabo

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photo collection Gemeentearchief Rotterdam

photo collection Gemeentearchief Rotterdam

transport through Leuvehaven, collection Gemeentearchief Rotterdam

transport through Leuvehaven, collection Gemeentearchief Rotterdam

photo Pieter Vandermeer

photo Pieter Vandermeer

Het Rotterdamse Jongenskoor (The Rotterdam Boys Choir) during the 50th anniversary of SIR, photo Michelle Wilderom

Het Rotterdamse Jongenskoor (The Rotterdam Boys Choir) during the 50th anniversary of SIR, photo Michelle Wilderom

the artwork after restoration, March 2018, photo Jannes Linders

the artwork after restoration, March 2018, photo Jannes Linders

the artwork after restoration, March 2018, photo Jannes Linders

the artwork after restoration, March 2018, photo Jannes Linders

the artwork after restoration, March 2018, photo Jannes Linders

the artwork after restoration, March 2018, photo Jannes Linders

The artwork

According to Naum Gabo, the three-dimensional construction that has flanked De Bijenkorf department store since 1957 was an ‘ideological contribution to constructivism’. This is related to the level of integration between the sculpture and the architecture, the transparency of the space defined by the sculpture and the impression of weightlessness in a sculpture of this format and weight, approximately 40,000 kilos.

The work dates from a period in which Gabo’s early abstract-geometric constructions had made way for more organic constructions. Gabo explained to the art historian Herbert Read that the sculpture was inspired by organic structures found in plants (Herbert Read, Gabo, Rotterdam 1958, unpaginated). The gradual changes in direction within the sculpture suggest movement.

Gabo saw the sculpture’s base as the roots that anchor the organism firmly in the ground. The two blocks of concrete, clad with black marble, form the equivalent of a trunk from which emerge eight metal branches that meet at the top. The darker finer core represents the foliage. In accordance with the principles of constructivism, the sculpture occupies the maximum area with the minimum mass.

Video
Mels van Zutphen was commissioned by Sculpture International Rotterdam to make the short film Het Ding as part of a series on works of art from SIR’s collection. In Het Ding, Van Zutphen provides a behind-the-scenes look at the restoration of the world-famous Rotterdam sculpture Z.T. 1957 by Naum Gabo. Van Zutphen combines impressive footage of the long-awaited 2018 restoration with audio clips of Gabo’s manifestos. Het Ding premiered at the 2018 Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht. Click here to watch Het Ding on Vimeo.

Publication
Following the long-desired large-scale restoration that took place in 2018, SIR released the publication GABO: Portrait of a Sculpture / Portret van een sculptuur in 2020. Published by Jap Sam Publishers, the book includes texts by Patricia van Ulzen, Toke Helmond, Siebe Thissen, Eleonoor Jap Sam and Dees Linders.

 

Year
1957
Location
Beursplein 33
Dimensions
4.50 x 5.40 x 26 m
Material
steel profile, tube and wire mesh
Client
De Bijenkorf
Owner
IEF Capital
Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo (Brjansk, Rusland, 1890 – Waterbury, USA, 1977) was one of the pioneers of modern sculpture. Instead of wood, stone and bronze he used new industrial materials such as acrylic glass and plastics. In his abstract, spatial constructions, mass and volume ‘the cornerstones of traditional sculpture’, made way for transparency and an apparent weightlessness. A truly modern feature of Gabo’s work is that he was inspired not by nature but by concepts from the exact sciences.

Gabo is usually counted among the Russian Constructivists, however he spent relatively little time in Russia. In 1910 Gabo moved to Munich where he studied medicine and then engineering. In this period he discovered art, attended classes with the famous art historian Heinrich Wölfflin and made trips to Italy and Paris.

He produced his first sculptures at the beginning of the First World War when he was living in Norway with his brother, the sculptor Antoine Pevsner. Following the Russian Revolution the two brothers returned to their native Russia in April 1917, where they became involved with the Russian Constructivists. In contrast to the more political Vladimir Tatlin, both brothers remained devoted to the art work as in independent aesthetic object. In their Realistic Manifesto, which they pasted around the streets of Moscow in 1920, they stated that ‘the realisation of our perception of the world in the form of space and time is the only aim of our pictorial and plastic art’.

Around 1922 Gabo left Russian and lived successively in Berlin, Paris and England. Gabo was universally regarded as an important innovator in sculpture and enjoyed a successful international career. In 1946 he immigrated to the United States, where he lived until his death in 1977.

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