This is an untitled work of art. It is a sculpture from 1964, originally placed next to the Rotterdam St. Paulusschool. André Volten (Andijk, 1925 – Amsterdam, 2002) often made untitled sculptures. Some artists leave out the title of their work of art for an unspecified purpose; they send it out into the world as a poste restante. That certainly does not apply to Volten. 'I do not want to bother anyone with my feelings and sentiments', he once gave as a modest explanation. But he did not mean that he did not take into account the feelings and sentiments of the world in which the works were placed. On the contrary.
In many cases it is as if André Volten's sculptures have always been there. When browsing through the publications about his work I discovered that I have known many of his sculptures for years, or think I know them, without knowing that they are his. Like the six arches that stood on the Jaarbeursplein in Utrecht since 1982. They are now on the Surinameplein in Amsterdam because of the redevelopment of the square, where they also fit in very well. In Utrecht they were part of an even larger work, it also included two circles of basalt lava, a 28-metre high stainless steel column and a 51-metre long canopy. I doubt whether passers-by saw that all those different forms were the work of one artist. But I am certain that their experience of the space, and mine, would have been different if those works had not been there.
In 1986, Volten also made the ring of seventeen meters in diameter for the Stopera in Amsterdam, a building in which the city hall and music building come together. The sculpture barely protrudes above the pavement. Part is sunk into the ground, another part is just half a meter above it, so that you can sit on it. It can function as an extension of the stage inside, Volten also described it as an arena. An arena right in front of the entrance to the city hall, in which passers-by and citizens have the opportunity to share their story. A silent but generous gesture to the public space.
This Rotterdam work from 1964, the sculpture that has now been given a new place, was for a long time just as inconspicuous despite its eleven and a half meters in length. It stood on the edge of the schoolyard of the St. Paulusschool on the Hazelaarweg, a Roman Catholic technical school in Schiebroek that was demolished in 2018. The statue appears in a school photo from the early seventies. The trees around the school are still small, the students and teachers look amused into the camera. They are boys and men, I see one woman.
The amazing thing is that despite its length of eleven and a half metres, the statue hardly takes up any space in the black and white photo. An art critic compared the elongated shapes that Volten made at that time to tuning forks, but that certainly does not apply to this statue. It is a composition of long, vertically placed iron plates. Although it stands in the ground with two poles, it is narrow at the base. It only becomes wider from a metre or two. Some parts need little support; despite their massiveness, they seem light and flexible. The inconspicuousness of the statue is partly due to the spaces that Volten leaves open between the plates. They provide space for air, light and interaction.
Volten was born in 1925 in Andijk, the son of an IJsselmeer fisherman. He started out as a painter, but, as art historian Antje von Graevenitz wrote in 1975, he no longer wanted to communicate with people about his images alone, but also 'with things': things had to be able to enter into a dialogue with his work. That Volten started working with metal was perhaps his fate, he said himself. From 1954 to 1958 he worked at the Nederlandse Dok en Scheepsbouwmaatschappij in Amsterdam-Noord, and there, in that shipyard, he made his first images. That he worked in iron was an exception at the time, in the early fifties. In 1955 he joined the Liga Nieuw Beelden, a gathering of architects and artists who strove for unity between art and life.
He also found his studio in Amsterdam-Noord, on the site where Asterdorp had previously stood, a district for so-called antisocials. It was still a working-class neighbourhood. Volten himself liked to work with his hands. 'I love the sensual contact with the material', he said. I have to think of Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), the English sculptor who called direct contact with marble, the cutting and polishing, a 'biological necessity'. And just like Volten, she made her sculptures transparent. In 1931, she pierced a sculpture for the first time. Her stone sculptures were already on display in the Netherlands in 1936, thanks to a meeting with Piet Mondriaan in London in 1938.
But Volten chose iron above all. Despite its cold image, he called the material 'democratic' and 'human'. He did not want to create new spaces, he was interested in new spatial experiences. 'I want people to live in my constructions, that children climb in them.' The latter also happened, for example in the work that Volten made in 1965 for the Vondelpark, on the occasion of its centenary.
In 1970, Volten, in his submission for the Rotterdam city manifestation C70, organised on the occasion of the silver liberation celebration, pushed even more for interaction with his work. No fewer than 28 artists, including Jan Dibbets, Panamarenko and local artists Wim Gijzen and Toni Burgering, were asked to conduct a 'critical investigation into the relationship between art and society'. Most submissions were rejected due to 'lack of realism'. The Communication column by Volten was the only design that was executed. It was a cylinder of about ten meters high, executed in rust-brown red lead, that was placed on the Stationsplein. Although Volten wanted everyone to be able to stick posters on it, so that it would become a 'dynamic socio-cultural element in the city', the municipality mainly used it for city marketing. Later, the organizers of concerts and festivals took over the direction. In 1975, the column was given a socio-cultural function after all: a group of Chilean artists and activists were granted permission to Communication column to be painted with slogans and drawings.
Now, André Volten's untitled artwork forms a new anchor point in the central reservation of the busy Dordtselaan. The proximity of the port and the historical working-class neighborhoods in Rotterdam-Zuid, the industrial history and the modern urban development come together in the image. And like all of Volten's works, it also invites new meanings at this new location. At night, the image seems to disappear into the darkness, while during the day it is visible in full regalia, firmly in the ground with two uprights. This artwork can handle the feelings and sentiments of anyone who wants to share them here.
Joke de Wolf is an art historian (PhD), and writes about visual arts and exhibitions for newspapers such as Trouw, De Groene Amsterdammer and Museumtrijdschrift. She also writes for other publications.
