Public Art. Amsterdam

Agenda

Ontmoetingsplaats 21ste eeuw

Figuren en Vuur

Ladders

Krijger

Vruchtbaarheid

Totempaal

Mensen op strand met parasol

Monument voor de Vrede

Aardewerk

Zwerm

Blauwe Boog

Jongen met Haan

Papieren vliegtuigpijl

Schaapjes

Senza Parole

Vleugelvormen

Zonder moeite niets (Het Sieraad)

Herdenkingsmonument voor slachtoffers Tweede Wereldoorlog

De Wending 666/999

Boegbeeld

Ankh

Het Molecularium

Vierwindstrekenbrug

Zonder Titel (hekwerk poort)

Home is where the heart is: de potkachel

BOLD TOREN BOUWMATERIALEN

Strike a Pose – Wafae Ahalouch

Amsterdam, the magic center, art and counterculture 1967-1970

Schip van Slebos

De Appel

Het Bankje

Het Raam

De Oude Kerk

Het Stoepje

Licht

De Brug

De Brug

Ruimtestructuur

Het Zandkasteel en de Amsterdamse Poort

How to Kill a Tree, Edward Clydesdale Thomson

City Cells

Nelson Mandela

Monument tegen Apartheid en Racisme

DOE IETS / DO SOMETHING

Spanje Monument

De Muur

Gedenkteken Steven van Dorpel

De Grote Glijbaan

Yellow Wings

Dolle Mina

Man en Schaap

Hortus Botanicus

Portrait of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, J.L. Vreugde

Anton de Kom

Now, Speak!

Tayouken Piss

Monument Bijlmerramp

Sequin Monument

Mama Aisa

Zonder titel (Twee Schuine Naalden)

Nationaal Monument Slavernijverleden

Monument for Martin Luther King

Gloei!

Voor de Bijen

Industrieel Monument

The Black Archives

Tussentijd

Corned Beef

Sami

Brace for Impact, Node #6

Untitled (You Don’t Have To Be Here)

Staalmanplein

Wegwerphuisje

Groot Landschap

De 7 poorten

Klimmuur

De Kies

Black Waves

Tectona Grandis

Stapeling omlaag

Animaris Rhinoseros Transport

Tuinen van West

De Poort van Constant

Fietstunnel station Amsterdam CS

Noordbeeld

NDSM-Werf

Ontmoetingsplaats

IJ boulevard

ADM monument

De Ceuvel

NDSM-Werf

Observatorium

De Ceuvel

Gedenkteken Ataturk

Twee Beelden

Sunday Seminar Pay Attention Please! curating the city

Official Opening Pay Attention Please!

De Kost en de Baat

Van Eesteren Museum and Aldo van Eyck’s climbing frames

Constructie met I-balken, André Volten

Mirage, Tamás Kaszás

Rembo, Bastienne Kramer

Untitled, Margot Zanstra

Horse Chestnut, Amok Island

2 U’s naar buiten / 2 U’s naar binnen, Carel Visser

Opstandingskerk, Marius Duintjer

Cascoland

WOW Amsterdam

Leonard van Munster, Under Heaven 02

Lex Horn, Concrete relief Hendrik de Keyser

Het Wiel, Jeroen Henneman

Herbert Nouwens, Brettensuite

White Noise

De Wachter

Feestelijke Beelden (festive sculptures)

Your Life is Calling

Untitled

Primum movens ultimum moriens

11 Rue Simon Crubellier

Lady Solid

Opgelichte Stoeptegels

Ode to Mungus, Menhir Tower and Spire

Untitled (Hildo)

The First Turk Immigrant or The Nameless Heroes of The Revolution – Framer Framed

Amsterdam, the Magic Center Art and counterculture 1967-1970, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Monument for the White Cube – P/////AKT

Monuments to the Unsung – Framer Framed

wild care, tame neglect – Frankendael Foundation

GET LOST – art route, several artists

Ode to the Bijlmer – CBK Zuidoost

Untitled (You Don’t Have To Be Here) – De Appel

We should have a conversation (2018) – De Appel

Fiep van Bodegom

Roos van Rijswijk

Alma Mathijsen

Massih Hutak

Chris Keulemans

Rashid Novaire

NDSM-wharf

Art tour Amsterdam West

  • permanent
  • accessible

‘Sculpting is like defecating, endlessly rocking back and forth until it is finally there.’

Carel Visser has worked with a whole range of materials throughout his career, from sand, shells and eggs to discarded car tires, oil drums and toys. But it wasn’t until a later stage in his career that he started employing these materials, as in the 1950s and ‘60s he still preferred steel.

Visser experienced sculpting with massive, heavy steel beams as a tough process. ‘That’s why it always takes so long. Sculpting is like defecating, endlessly rocking back and forth until it is finally there.’

Carel Visser was a representative of constructivism, a movement related to De Stijl. In the same manner Mondriaan drew a straight line on paper, so Visser worked with steel beams manufactured for industrial use. They came in all sorts: I-beams, H-beams and these ones in Bos en Lommerplantsoen which are U-beams. About his choice of material Visser said back then: ‘(…) Working with a sheet of paper, a pencil and a bit of glue, bending a piece of metal – all of this to me is a kind of activity on one side of a borderline. On the other side for example is bronze. Those bronze objects you see about the city sometimes, they scare me.”

Upon taking a close look at 2 U’s naar buiten / 2 U’s naar binnen (2 U’s outward / 2 U’s inward), you see the beams are not perfectly stacked, that the lines are not as straight as they seem to be at first sight and that the seams have not been polished. In other words, the work is not machine-made, it is hand-made.

The human aspect also played a part in choosing the location. Architect and designer Aldo van Eyck once told Carel Visser never to show his works in a white space but always against a distinct (dark) background: surrounded by white they would look flat, like silhouettes. Whatever angle you pick to look at 2 U’s naar buiten / 2 U’s naar binnen from, there are buildings and plants everywhere. The only distraction from the two inward U’s are the two outward U’s, that’s all.

More information

Crouwel, Wim en Peski, Daphne van (1978) Carel Visser – Papierbeelden. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Agenda

March