ENVIRONMENTAL ARTIST AND SCULPTOR LUCIEN DEN AREND
Lucien den Arend (photographer Lucien den Arend)
Lucien den Arend spent his youth in California and began art studies there.
He moved to the Netherlands in the early 1960s, where he graduated as a drawing
teacher and then continued his studies in sculpting in Rotterdam Academy of
Fine Arts. In 1970 he received Threshold Rotterdam Art Foundation Award. Lucien
den Arend taught sculpture in Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam 1977 - 1978
and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague 1981 - 1982.
Lucien den
Arend is one of the central exponents of European Concrete Art. For him the main
driving force behind the work of art is the study of structure and geometry.
Den Arend seeks to avoid arbitrariness and aims for mathematical purity of expression
in his sculpture. The geometric contours arise from the precisely bent tubular
structures, plates and cut shapes.
Den Arend is also a renowned environmental
artist, who has made site specific sculptures, land art and environmental projects.
His public art works include e.g. Pieter Janszoon Saenredam Project, a massive
island encompassing environment in Barendrecht, Holland and Dirksland Polder,
a road bridge and its environment also in Holland, Closing the Arctic Circle, a stainless
steel tubular structure in the courtyard of the Kemijärvi cultural center and
Veera, a red painted steel plate sculpture in the Vaasa waterfront park.
Lucien den Arend was secretary of the Dutch Sculptor’s Association 1979
– 1984 and its chairman 1984 – 1986 and chairman of the Scholarship Committee
for Artists and Architects of the Dutch Ministry of Culture 1981-1983. Den Arend
has also actively worked towards greater cultural understanding. He realized
an international sculpture park in the Drechtsteden, Holland in 1996 and started
the organization for a second international sculpture park in Finland in 2004.
Den Arend coordinated the exchange between Dutch and Bulgarian artists for which
he was awarded the 1st Class Order of the Knight of Madara. Den Arend also served
as a cultural ambassador for Unesco in 2005. In 2006 he opened POAM Penttilä
Open Air Museum where a collection of his works is permanently exhibited.
Environmental Art Encounters-seminar 26.4.2007
homage to El Lissitzky land art in The Netherlands
1986
In his speech Lucien den Arend examined the relationship
between art and built environment. Ideally, the architecture is not only the
sum of its parts, but a holistic experience, which creates an atmosphere and
is tinged with social encounters.
Bridge and designs for Highway S47 (now N215)
around Dirksland and Middelharnis, Provincial Department of Construction of
the Province of Zuid-Holland The Netherlands 1984-1989
A sculptor
always wishes to find the best location for his work: a location in which the
scale, material, color and shape of the sculpture fits the environment. When
the sculpture already exists, this may be a challenge. Ideally the artist gets
to conceive and make a site-specific sculpture for an existing location. Then
there is the possibility of not “installing” a sculpture at all. When in 1969
den Arend received his first commission for an interior garden at a vocational
rehabilitation and employment plant (DSW in Dordrecht, Holland), it enabled
him to do more than place a sculpture on a given location. Den Arend created
a holistic environment in which garden and sculpture form a harmonious whole.
This was the opening for his career as an environmental artist. The realization
of the fact that any present natural environment really originates from a partnership
between man and natural forces either joining them or opposing them, opened
up a whole new world. Environmental art can be made using only elements and
resources from our environment, be it natural or manmade artifacts. There is
no need for separate, or even included sculpture, when the whole environment
becomes the sculpture.
Katariina Lipsanen
Sources:
http://www.denarend.com/symposiums_lectures/lectures_seminars/lapland_university_rovaniemi/index.htm
Marjut Pitkänen, Kari Huhtamon Taidesäätiö ja Sari Väyrynen, Lapin yliopisto.
Bulletin on the Encounters-seminar.
Merja Vehmas: Top artists trust the idea
of the world class university. Lapin Kansa 27.4.2007.
Encounters page
Kari Piippo
Lucien den
Arend
Jorma
Hautala
Yrjö Kukkapuro
Antero Toikka