Maas sculpture (1982) Auke de Vries

photo Otto Snoek
About the artwork

Auke de Vries designed it Maas sculpture for the location at the new Willemsbrug, which replaced the old Willemsbrug in 1981. The artist always designs his sculptures after a thorough study of the environment in which the sculpture eventually ends up. In this case he was inspired by the clean lines of the new bridge. According to him, visual art should not compete with two large vertical elements in the area: the Nieuwe Willemsbrug and the White House. De Vries designed a horizontal wire-like connection that runs from the Willemsbrug to a pillar of the old railway bridge, which was demolished in 1993. The connection consists of objects such as a ring, box, pennant and a hanging ball; elements from shipping that pass the screen every day on the Maas. This created a sculpture that interacts with its environment. The image is a plaything of the water in the Meuse and of the wind, which gently set the parts of the artwork in motion. It can be categorized as analytic cubism. Popularly the image is also called The washing line mentioned. For more information: Sculpture International Rotterdam

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About the artist

Auke de Vries (Bergum, 1937) is a sculptor from The Hague. Initially he was a graphic artist and etcher and in 1959 was awarded the Royal Prize for Painting. In the 1997s he started the metal sculptures with which he would gain national fame. In XNUMX he was awarded the Ouborg Prize.

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