Bach in Arts - Hommage a Bach

Art-1753

Type:

Bach Sculpture

Title:

The Suites - 1

Description:

Nouwens' reflections on the relationship between the Bach's suites for the cello and his project 'The Suites':
"I see the cello suites as building a structure, that is made up of a series of choices, whereby each choice is dictated by a previous choice. The suites are complex and versatile. Every time I hear something new and surprising, repetitions, which are just slightly different, softening of the music alternating with exuberance and complexity. What I also find appealing that the suites are played by a single instrument in the same way that I always work with only one material. The colourful changes in the suites and in the sculptures are gradations within 'one' spectrum; you can see it as a maximal exploitation of all possible sounds of a cello or the characteristics of steel". Nouwens draws parallels in the timeframes within Bach's created his suites and other works, as five of the six sculptures that are now exhibited at Winschoten were created in under one month. "It is a matter of experience, technique, form, plasticity, expressiveness, patience and endurance..."

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Creator:

Artist: Herbert Nouwens

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About the Artist:
Herbert Nouwens (1954, Oegstgeest) has been creating tower-shaped steel sculptures since the nineties. Steel as a working material is rugged, refractive and unyielding, but it's natural erosive characteristic has a unique, unpredictable and long-term effect on the sculpture. Nouwens acknowledges that the inspirations for this genre of his work are the medieval towers in Italy. He has studied these towers in depth. By using this knowledge, together with his artistic and philosophical creativity and vision, Nouwens created a series of tower-shaped sculptures in heights ranging from ten centimetres to eight meters. The sculptures vary from closed to open, adorned or just sober. His aim to create lightness and lifting effect in a material that by nature is just heavy demands a considered work style. Another source of Nouwens' inspiration derives from music, especially the music of J.S. Bach. Bach's monumental music compositions are frequently compared to architecture thus, it is not surprising that this has influenced Nouwens' work. In 1998 Nouwens had an exhibition of small plastic art titled '24 preludes', referring to the Bach's 24 preludes en fuga's for piano. For project 'The Suites' Nouwens has been guided by these two passions 'Towers and Bach'. The six tower-contoured sculptures refer to Bach's six suites 'solos for the cello'. These everlasting musical works represent individuality, independence and sublime variations, while together they form an absolute unity. The Nouwens' sculptures are also designed with 'six different identities' that can stand on their own radiating their unique independent beauty, but with a similar underlying connective unity. The optimal application and exploitation of Nouwens' understanding of the material used in the sculptures allies the artist to the virtuoso, who skilfully and musically brought his musical compositions to life. The solo part that in the cello suites are so prominently expressed can also be found in the work of Nouwens, who has developed an highly skilled individual work style that enables him to control a complex material and, just as with music, brings it to life. In the music the combination of sound, fragility and transience only exist at that moment in time. Steel in every respect represents the complete opposite as it defies time, demands courage and a philosophical vision. 'The Suites', the appropriate title for Nouwens' six sculptures, has become a source of inspiration.

Working methods of Herbert Nouwens:
Nouwens creates his large sculptures in the same way as his small models. He builds his sculptures by using a hoisting-crane. The materials that are available to him at the time dictate size and form. He doesn't start with a small model, but searches and selects pieces of steel in his stock of 100,000 kilo of steel including shipwrecks, misshapen H-beams, thick plates and massive blocks. He starts off with cutting and welding the pieces of steel trying out different combinations before assembling the pieces into a sculpture. Within a few days, without any apparent difficulty, the contour of a new sculpture emerges. The sculptures are usually assembled placed on the ground, where the pieces are provisionally welded before being raised upright, so that Nouwens can evaluate if the sculpture has the expressiveness that he had visualised. His critical view frequently results in a sculpture being dismantled, because the bowing of an H-beam is not good enough, or the composition of the volume is not exactly right. Nouwens climbs up and down his crane, cuts one piece off and welds another. He rearranges the pieces, lifts the sculpture again and after a new critical appraisal lowers the sculpture again. This process is repeated until he is satisfied with the final result. After this the final finishing starts. Everything is welded, edges are grounded down and polished, paint is removed and a foundation is welded underneath. It is fascinating to observe Nouwens in this energetic creative mode. It is equally fascinating to appreciate the stepping-stones of his working method that, without a working model, you see a sculpture created that ultimately cannot be anything else but what it is.

Source/Links: Herbert Nouwens - Sculptor
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (August 2008)

Herbert Nouwens - Hommage a Bach