PLEASE (1996) Henk Visch
The then director of the Kunsthal Wim van Krimpen placed this three-meter-high statue of Henk Visch in the Museum Park. He had seen the statue at Galerie Fons Welters. When it turned out that the sculpture had not been sold during the exhibition and was back in the artist's studio, he bought the sculpture from Visch. Although it had been agreed with the Municipality of Rotterdam that the Museumpark would remain free of statues, Van Krimpen thought the statue would fit in the park at the entrance to the Kunsthal. The statue was therefore placed overnight without consultation, who owns the land. The bronze statue of two legs has the title PLEASE, which is a reference to 'au my legs'. The legs hang between standing and sitting and therefore resemble the legs of a deep-seated skater. The feet are rooted in the earth, but the legs must resist gravity.
Henk Visch (Eindhoven, 1950) studied at the Academy of Art and Design in Den Bosch and subsequently worked as a graphic artist and draftsman. He taught at art academies in Amsterdam, Maastricht, Stuttgart and Münster. His work is versatile and consists of drawings, graphics, abstract constructions and figurative sculptures. Visch makes massive wood sculptures, but also delicate structures, stylized human figures and humorous assemblages from a wide variety of materials. Visch often combines language with images and adds poetic texts. Properties such as equilibrium and balance, vulnerability and transience play an important role in Visch's sculpture. In 2023, Visch was the winner of the 13th Wilhelminaring, the Dutch oeuvre prize for sculptors. Henk Visch lives and works in Eindhoven and Berlin.