Ode aan het Oude
Self initiated commission to make a sculpture for this small no man’s land nearby my studio in co-operation with Middelland community centre, guided by BKOR, located on Claes de Vrieselaan / Schermlaan, Rotterdam.
The bronze head of a frowning elderly gentleman, sinking in his ruff, was based on my own old man who had to sell his business by that time as he couldn’t agree with the changing times anymore. For me there was a connection between my dad’s story, the new perspective of old age as an unwanted disease, that became very present in the nineties, and the wave of disrespectful renovation that flooded the old neighbourhoods in Rotterdam. So I felt the urge to create an Ode the Old.
read latest article in NRC about him in Dutch
P.S. due to the attention around the article, the masonry of his ruff collar was recently redone!
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- 1994
- circus: ø600cm and head: 60 x 92 x 93 cm
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- bronze, green glazed and red authentic bricks
- Commissioned by Rotterdam/Middelland