On Groningen's Cascadeplein, the largest woman in the Netherlands walks down a flight of stairs. She is eight metres tall and known as Ultra (2004). This statue was created by Silvia B. (1963). During a lecture at VRIJDAG, we learned more about the artist behind this famous Groningen artwork and the sculpture itself. For example, why does Ultra rest on such tall pillars? Why did her skirt have to be altered according to the municipality of Groningen? And what scoop did we find out that night?
Silvia B. studied sculpture and fashion at the Academy of Visual Arts in Rotterdam for three years, but did not complete the programme. She then completed a foundation year in art history at Leiden University. Since then, she has been an autonomous artist, working under the motto of beauty and doubt.
THE FIRST DESIGN FOR ULTRA WAS ONLY EIGHT CM HIGH
The evening began with a behind-the-scenes look at Ultra's design. At the beginning of this millennium, B. was commissioned by the municipality of Groningen to create a sculpture for the Cascade complex. Built between 1994 and 2000, the Cascade complex houses several government departments, offices and a residential tower. Silvia B. envisaged a parade of pillars in the buildings and wanted to put Ultra in front of them as the leader of the parade. Before she started the design, B. had a model made of the site at a scale of 1:100. So Ultra's first concept was only eight centimetres tall. Originally, Ultra was supposed to have tattoos, but they later reappeared in the skirt. In an earlier design, the skirt could be climbed too easily according to the municipality and it had to be changed as well. When the work was finally finished, it was transported from Hardinxveld to Groningen by boat. Now she gets a new coat of white paint on her face every seven years. The inside of the skirt is cleaned twice a year.
SHE INCORPORATES TRENDS INTO HER WORK
The trends of the times we live in and the social reason behind these trends are both of crucial importance to B. Ultra's tattoos and piercing, for example, stem from that. After the new millennium began, tribal tattoos, camouflage trousers and piercings were in fashion. The long stilts on which the woman's small body towers also stem partly from that. In B.'s words: ‘Prosthetics and orthotics were suddenly allowed to be seen, as if humans were growing towards becoming cyborgs.’ The stilts, which also represent the front pillars, are therefore huge prostheses.
She saw a kind of vulnerability in fashion around 2015, with more and more skin seeing the light of day. ‘The uniform was allowed to come off,’ says B. in a comparison with the fashion at the time that Ultra was created. Piercings, tribal tattoos and camo trousers gave way to comfortable jumpers, soft hair and bare ankles. The series that emerged from this period, Stringendo, consists of second-hand dolls that B. converted. The basis for these was a teenager who has to conform to expectations and is still dependent, but also has a will of her own.
SHE IS A CONTROL FREAK
When it comes to technology, B. is almost an all-rounder, though describes herself a more like a 'customiser'. She uses existing objects and puts her own spin on them. That ties in with a need for control, she says: ‘I am a do-it-yourselfer and a control freak. For example, when I get an animal back from the taxidermist, I go there for a good haircut or manicure so that it looks exactly how I want it.’ So when she had to outsource much of the creation process when making Ultra — which took about a year — because of the techniques required, she found it very difficult.
SHE LIKES TO MAKE WORK THAT CAN BE INTERPRETED IN DIFFERENT WAYS
With her work, she wants to make the judgement of misfits less harsh, by using doubt to make people look longer. ‘I find people who know everything for sure quite scary,’ says B., ‘because they exclude so much. When you have doubts, anything is still possible.’ There is often a tension in B.'s work because of the hybrid forms she creates. Ultra, for example, is a human being held up by mechanised arms. In Ultra, B. combines humans with robots. Later projects mix humans with animals. An example is the work Les Bêtes Noires (2000) where child dolls are covered in black sheepskin. In some cases, however, the two remain separate, as in the work Andrew & Anubis (2008) from the Les plus Beaux I series. This work evokes many different interpretations, which B. is very happy with. She likes to make work that can be viewed from many angles.
SHE FOUNDED THE SMALLEST MUSEUM IN THE NETHERLANDS
Besides making art, Silvia B. founded the 'smallest museum in the Netherlands' with visual artist Rolf van Engelen in 1995: Museum of Nagsael. It existed until 2006 and organised a total of 132 exhibitions. In 2008, B. and Engelen developed a special permanent setting for Museum van Nagsael: the museum has since been presented and managed by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.