Antwerpen - Middelheim 1993
1993
Per Kirkeby
Even though Per Kirkeby uses brick and cement, and designs his sculptures like an architect, it is not a full-fledged building. It grants us no reassuring roof over our heads and serves no purpose. Or does it?
Details
- Plan number: S10
- Zone: Urban nature
- Title: Antwerpen - Middelheim 1993
- Creator: Per Kirkeby
- Date: 1993
- Material: brick
- Acquisition: purchase
- Object number: MID.B.472
The brick sculpture confronts the viewer with his or her own view of art, architecture, public space, and nature. You can walk around in it and get lost, because inside it is a labyrinth. The trail frequently comes to a dead end in closed rooms and blind walls. From a bird’s-eye view, however, the brick sculpture looks extremely orderly. The floor plan consists of a rectangle with three squares and three circles.
This mysterious semblance of a building with no apparent use is in keeping with the tradition of follies, architectural instances of “foolishness” typical of the romantic English style of this part of the park.
Danish artist Per Kirkeby began creating brick sculptures, paintings, and collages in the 1970s. Although not an architect, he is a sculptor and painter, and a geologist by training. As a scientist, he observed architecture in the many countries he visited. In his sketches, architectural styles are stripped of all ornamentation and local features; what remains is a kind of basic form.
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