1 . Can you tell us something about your own work?
“My work is site-specific; I seek a connection with a place. I find invisible processes fascinating; I want to make them visible. I want to name and visualize something present at that place that is not immediately noticeable: the atmosphere or a story circulating there. In 2018-2019, I was asked to create an artwork for the hunting lodge Schloss Clemenswerth in Sögel. It had to do with hunting, but also with listening to and observing animals in nature, to learn from them and also to learn about oneself. I made three animals out of plexiglass used for hunting: a horse, a dog, and a falcon, which can run faster, smell, and see better than humans. They stood within an oval enclosure. As you approached, you heard a soundscape of hoofbeats, barking, and screeching. Through the clear, transparent material, you could sometimes see the animals, sometimes not, and you saw the surroundings reflected, or yourself. There was a constant movement from yourself to the artwork, situated between visible and invisible, between audible and inaudible.” “Sometimes I grant permission to remove a work on the condition that an art commission for another artist takes its place.”
2. When did you first start thinking about an artist's legacy, and how do you incorporate that into your own work?
“After the exhibition in Germany, I participated with the same work in the Contrast exhibition at Sculpture Garden De Havixhorst, near Meppel, together with two other artists. One had passed away in 2019, and a week after the opening, a second died. Then, suddenly, I was the only one still alive. If you can still reflect on what happens to your work after your death, you feel a kind of responsibility towards your surroundings, your heirs, but also from a societal perspective. What happens to the material? Does the work still have a connection to the place if it acquires a different function? The Bus Stops in Groningen have already been modified twice. Sometimes the infrastructure changes in such a way that I grant permission to remove the work on the condition that an art commission for another artist takes place at that same location. I destroyed The Whisperers myself; a film was made of it that premiered in 2023. I am going to return the residue—I call it plexi-ash—on a pilgrimage to the producer in Milan. In this way, it is reabsorbed into the cycle of the production chain.”
3. How should other artists deal with this?
“There are so many different ways of working. For some, everything may be destroyed; others want an overview in a catalogue, their own museum, their own foundation. As an artist, you do have to be proactive—for example, if part of your work is in danger of disappearing—to come up with a new solution together. At the first meeting in Kunstpunt, conversations between two artists were held as a working method. I think that is a beautiful format. Such conversations can be summarized on video, in short interviews, and then serve as a guide for other artists to reflect on their own legacy.”
About Veldwerk
Veldwerk is a new expertise and research program by Kunstpunt in which professionals from the arts field come together to discuss, explore, and translate concrete questions regarding artistry and art in public space into practice. The first theme within Veldwerk is legacy. For more information, visit kunstpuntgroningen.nl/en/veldwerk
✍️: Steven Kolsteren
📸: Casper Maas
This article previously appeared in KUNST. magazine #4 (p. 25).