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The Hague Sculpture 2008 - 6 June t/m 31 August 2008
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In the summer of 2008, The Hague Sculpture is requesting attention for American sculpture under the title FREEDOM. With many well-known and high-profile sculptures but also new works of art especially made for the exhibition, The Hague Sculpture wishes to show what freedom means for artists and indirectly how important it is that we, visitors and the general public, cherish freedom, refusing to take it for granted.
The catalogue is ofcourse giving full attention to all the artists participating in the FREEDOM exhibition with most of the exhibited artworks photographed for the catalogue on site. The Hague Sculpture this edition also spread its wings to ‘FREEDOM Outposts’, as we call already existing highlights of American art (amongst others works of Donald Judd, James Turrell, Lawrence Weiner, Tom Otterness, Vito Acconci,) and architecture in the city of The Hague (the U.S. Embassy building of Marcel Breuer, the City-Hall of Richard Meier, The Peace Palace funded by Carnegie); these FREEDOM Outposts are also included and photographed especially for the catalogue. This and much more extra's - an essay on the four freedoms of Roosevelt and a photologue about New York - can be found in our catalogue.
Design: Matt Mullican
Inspired by the FREEDOM theme, a number of KABK students (first-year and second-year students of the Visual Arts, Graphic Design and Photography) designed their own posters. Of the approximately 130 posters, the best sixty were able to be viewed in The Affiche Gallery from 1 July to 14 July. The posters have also been included in the catalogue as inserts.
The posters are very diverse, exuberant, moving, amusing, at times repelling and now and again you have to think for a while before the message gets through. They have one thing in common - they are all personal visions by young people of the concept of freedom.
From 1 July to 15 July 2008, The Affiche Galerij functioned as an outpost of The Hague Sculpture. The exhibition was open daily free of charge from 6 hours till 24 hours. More information can be found at www.gemeentearchief.denhaag.nl.
It is immediately apparent that this is a tree – the proportions and its shape are right. At the same time, we are obviously not dealing with a product of mother nature here; the tree is made of shiny stainless steel, there is a distinct absence of foliage and the above all, the colossus seems to be upside down, its roots reaching up into the air and its branches resting on the ground.
The work of Roxy Paine deals with the complex relationship between human beings, nature and technology. The tree’s artificiality encourages you to reflect on the concept of naturalness. As Inversion does not have its roots in the ground and cannot therefore extract nutrients from the soil, the tree should really be doomed to decay and be rotting away. However, fortunately, the stainless steel refuses to go along with this version of things.
The 2008 Rabobank Hague Sculpture Incentive Prize for students of the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague (*) was awarded to Iona Hoogenberk. She used the prize money of € 6.500 to realise her design ‘Freedom is Contact’ and expose it at the exhibition. Almost 58% of the voters, members of the e bank – chose her work. The two other young artists nominated by the jury of experts, Irma Arquer Dilla and Dylan Morris, were way behind her, with 26% and 16% of the votes.
The first press release on The Hague Sculpture 2008: FREEDOM was sent out. The press release can be found under the heading 'Press'. At the same time, the names of the participating artists of The Hague Sculpture 2008: FREEDOM were made public. These can be viewed under 'artists'.
