Telling no Lies
1996
Henk Visch
Henk Visch made this sculpture especially for Middelheim Museum. He designed an ambiguous form that relates to other (bronze) sculptures and to the park. “My work looks like a stump, an old, rotting tree,” he said. “You can clearly see that the sculpture is made of building blocks, like the museum buildings around it.” The result is surprising and invites all kinds of associations: is it a pedestal, a chalice, a tree trunk, a fungus, or something else entirely?
Details
- Plan number: V07
- Zone: Entanglement
- Title: Telling no Lies
- Creator: Henk Visch
- Date: 1996
- Material: bronze
- Acquisition: purchase
- Object number: MID.B.485
Unlike more classical bronze sculptures, the surface of “Telling No Lies” is rough and unfinished. For the artist, this alludes to the fleeting quality of a drawing or sketch.
The sculpture seems to derive its form from natural elements. At the same time, the welds remain emphatic. This object is clearly man-made. Even the title refers to human characteristics: lying is something only humans can do. Just like consciously choosing not to do so.
Dutch contemporary draftsman, sculptor, and graphic artist Henk Visch has a remarkable sense of the interplay between image and language. His work is highly diverse: sometimes thin lines of metal, like drawings in the air, other times massive bronze volumes. As Visch himself says, “my work has no direction, but all directions.”
From the same artist
Henk Visch
*Currently under restoration* Three blood-red droplets stand upright next to each other. Are they drops of water, tears … or do you see something else in them? Henk Visch created the sculpture in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis, which claimed many victims. For him, the work refers to that painful period.
Henk Visch
The title of this sculpture is “Again.” What will this leg do again? It suggests movement, but at the same time is motionless. It is heavy and solid, but also wobbly. This field of tension intrigues Henk Visch. The sculpture looks simple, but the surprising title stimulates the viewer’s imagination without offering an unequivocal answer.
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