Arne Quinze
Encyclopedia
Arne Quinze is a conceptual artist best known for his unconventional and controversial public art installations. Quinze also creates large and small sculptures, drawings, paintings. In his late teens he started out as a graffiti artist in Brussels.
is known for his trademark sculptures made out of wooden planks. His installations are built to provoke reaction and to intervene in the daily life of passersby confronted with his sculptures. Quinze sees his installations as places where people meet each other again and start conversations. Since a year he started doing research towards metal sculptures
In 2006, he gained a lot of attention by building Uchronia: A message from the future, a large wide wooden sculpture at the Burning Man
festival in Black Rock City,in the Nevada
desert, US. Cityscape (2007) and The Sequence (2008) are two of his giant wooden public art installations in the centre of Brussels
, Belgium
. It was the first time a sculpture gave the impression touching two buildings in the city center while traffic still passes by underneath it. The installation for the Flemish Parliament
became an unequivocal actor in the city. In Munich
, Germany
, he built Traveller (2008) for French luxury fashion and leather goods brand Louis Vuitton
. Other public art installations by Arne Quinze have recently been revealed in the centre of Paris, France (Rebirth, 2008), Beirut
, Lebanon
(The Visitor, 2009) and Louisville, Kentucky
(Big Four Bridge, ongoing)
During the festival Rouen Impressionnée which took place in Rouen
in the summer of 2010 he paid tribute to the impressionist Claude Monet
by painting Les Jardins/The Waterlilies series for an exhibition in the Abbatiale de Saint-Ouen. The festival was organized as the contemporary component of the Normandie Impressionniste festival, a festival under the presidence of Laurent Fabius
, former French Prime Minister, celebrating the impressionist past of the region. Next to the exhibition an installation (Camille) was built on the Boieldieu bridge, a bridge that has been painted by the impressionist painter Camille Pissaro several times.
Like a futuristic substitute for the market squares of old, Quinze sees his installations as places where people meet and converse as they used to in bygone eras. Red Beacon (2010) is placed in the Jing’an Sculpture Park, the pioneer of presenting public art in the heart of Shanghai
located downtown in the Jing’an District. His sculptures redefine social space and provide alternative models of interaction.
Other work is focussing on the axiom that people tend to seek a safe environment, a cocoon eliminating the unexpectable. The installation My Home My House My Stilthouse (2011) in Humlebaek, Denmark
at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
shows the visitor a new form of how housing and living can be perceived.
He revealed a virtual installation Rock Strangers (2011) on the Statue of Liberty
in New York
, US on the 4th of July in collaboration with Beck's
for their Green Box Project. The project is co-curated, commissioned and mentored by Nick Knight
of SHOWstudio.com
and producer Sam Spiegel
. Commissioned work will only ever appear in the digital realm.
Arne Quinze: "With these sculptures I'm looking for a confrontation with the public, I hope they start asking questions about what their function on this planet is. What happens when putting all of the sudden an alien element in the city, our habitual urban environment? How do we react to unusual objects if we are confronted with them in our daily lives? Who or what remains the stranger, the person confronted with it or the object itself?"
Quinze's artwork is mainly referring to social interaction, evolution
, communication
, rhythm, the interplay of lines, contrasts and contradictions. Recurring techniques in his work are multiple types of wood, including salvaged wood; cardboard, polyurethane
and electrical colors in fluorescent paint. Because of their intense orange-red color the sculptures contrast with their natural surroundings and generate the sentiment of estrangement. People are completely absorbed by the orange initiating astonished reactions.
He creates works in themes such as Bidonville, Stilthouse, My Home My House My Stilthouse
, View and Chaos; broadening further on his studies of livability in today's context. All his work has a humane aspect; Stilthouses can be perceived as humans on fragile legs symbolizing the strong nature of man. Bidonvilles are considered to be houses for the future
as an apperception
on the way how people are living now and tranquilize or accelerate the living process intentionally, provoking open communication
in a society
of human interaction.
In 2009, Quinze installed a public Stilthouse installation called The Visitor in Beirut
, Lebanon
near its newly developed Souk complex, and auction house Phillips de Pury & Company invited the artist to present his work at their London
gallery. Due to its success early 2010, the exhibition was prolonged at London's Saatchi
Gallery in the Duke of York's Headquarters on King's Road
.
During Hamburg Artweek (2011) he revealed new work showing a shift in the use of materials including smashed old porcelain symbolizing the destruction of our family traditions.
at their Miami waterfront home on 9 September 2009. They celebrated the marriage on 12 September 2009 in Berlin
. Germany
.
Quinze lives and works in Sint Martens Latem nearby Ghent
, Belgium.
In October 2011, Barbara Becker
and Quinze divorced.
Installation art
The artistArtist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
is known for his trademark sculptures made out of wooden planks. His installations are built to provoke reaction and to intervene in the daily life of passersby confronted with his sculptures. Quinze sees his installations as places where people meet each other again and start conversations. Since a year he started doing research towards metal sculptures
In 2006, he gained a lot of attention by building Uchronia: A message from the future, a large wide wooden sculpture at the Burning Man
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
festival in Black Rock City,in the Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
desert, US. Cityscape (2007) and The Sequence (2008) are two of his giant wooden public art installations in the centre of Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. It was the first time a sculpture gave the impression touching two buildings in the city center while traffic still passes by underneath it. The installation for the Flemish Parliament
Flemish Parliament
The Flemish Parliament constitutes the legislative power in Flanders, for matters which fall within the competence of Flanders, both as a geographic region and a cultural community of Belgium The Flemish Parliament (Dutch: , and formerly called Flemish Council or Vlaamse Raad) constitutes the...
became an unequivocal actor in the city. In Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, he built Traveller (2008) for French luxury fashion and leather goods brand Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
. Other public art installations by Arne Quinze have recently been revealed in the centre of Paris, France (Rebirth, 2008), Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
(The Visitor, 2009) and Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
(Big Four Bridge, ongoing)
During the festival Rouen Impressionnée which took place in Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
in the summer of 2010 he paid tribute to the impressionist Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
by painting Les Jardins/The Waterlilies series for an exhibition in the Abbatiale de Saint-Ouen. The festival was organized as the contemporary component of the Normandie Impressionniste festival, a festival under the presidence of Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius is a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. He was 37 years old when he was appointed and is, so far, the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic.-Early life:...
, former French Prime Minister, celebrating the impressionist past of the region. Next to the exhibition an installation (Camille) was built on the Boieldieu bridge, a bridge that has been painted by the impressionist painter Camille Pissaro several times.
Like a futuristic substitute for the market squares of old, Quinze sees his installations as places where people meet and converse as they used to in bygone eras. Red Beacon (2010) is placed in the Jing’an Sculpture Park, the pioneer of presenting public art in the heart of Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
located downtown in the Jing’an District. His sculptures redefine social space and provide alternative models of interaction.
Other work is focussing on the axiom that people tend to seek a safe environment, a cocoon eliminating the unexpectable. The installation My Home My House My Stilthouse (2011) in Humlebaek, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located directly on the shore of the Øresund Sound in Humlebæk, north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the most visited art museum in Denmark with an extensive permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, dating from World War II and up...
shows the visitor a new form of how housing and living can be perceived.
He revealed a virtual installation Rock Strangers (2011) on the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, US on the 4th of July in collaboration with Beck's
Beck's
Brauerei Beck & Co is a German brewery in the north German city of Bremen. Owned by local families until February 2002, it was then sold to Interbrew for 1.8 billion euros. The brewery was formed under the name Kaiserbrauerei Beck & May o.H.G. in 1873 by Lüder Rutenberg, Heinrich Beck and Thomas...
for their Green Box Project. The project is co-curated, commissioned and mentored by Nick Knight
Nick Knight
Nicholas Verity Knight is a former England cricketer. Knight's middle name was in honour of the 1930s English Test bowler Hedley Verity who was killed in World War II and is a distant family relation...
of SHOWstudio.com
SHOWstudio.com
SHOWstudio.com is a fashion website, founded and directed by Nick Knight. Since it began at the start of the new millennium, SHOWstudio.com has championed film and moving image as the ideal medium for fashion in the digital age, and has utilised online streaming and real-time reporting methods –...
and producer Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel
Sam Spiegel was an Austrian-born American independent film producer.-Life and career:Spiegel was born in Jarosław, Galicia, Austria-Hungary as Samuel P. Spiegel to a German-Jewish father and Polish mother and educated at the University of Vienna. His brother was Shalom Spiegel, a professor of...
. Commissioned work will only ever appear in the digital realm.
Arne Quinze: "With these sculptures I'm looking for a confrontation with the public, I hope they start asking questions about what their function on this planet is. What happens when putting all of the sudden an alien element in the city, our habitual urban environment? How do we react to unusual objects if we are confronted with them in our daily lives? Who or what remains the stranger, the person confronted with it or the object itself?"
Work
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, rhythm, the interplay of lines, contrasts and contradictions. Recurring techniques in his work are multiple types of wood, including salvaged wood; cardboard, polyurethane
Polyurethane
A polyurethane is any polymer composed of a chain of organic units joined by carbamate links. Polyurethane polymers are formed through step-growth polymerization, by reacting a monomer with another monomer in the presence of a catalyst.Polyurethanes are...
and electrical colors in fluorescent paint. Because of their intense orange-red color the sculptures contrast with their natural surroundings and generate the sentiment of estrangement. People are completely absorbed by the orange initiating astonished reactions.
He creates works in themes such as Bidonville, Stilthouse, My Home My House My Stilthouse
, View and Chaos; broadening further on his studies of livability in today's context. All his work has a humane aspect; Stilthouses can be perceived as humans on fragile legs symbolizing the strong nature of man. Bidonvilles are considered to be houses for the future
Future
The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...
as an apperception
Apperception
Apperception is any of several aspects of perception and consciousness in such fields as psychology, philosophy and epistemology.-Meaning in psychology:...
on the way how people are living now and tranquilize or accelerate the living process intentionally, provoking open communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
in a society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
of human interaction.
In 2009, Quinze installed a public Stilthouse installation called The Visitor in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
near its newly developed Souk complex, and auction house Phillips de Pury & Company invited the artist to present his work at their London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
gallery. Due to its success early 2010, the exhibition was prolonged at London's Saatchi
Saatchi
Saatchi is an arabic name meaning "clockmaker", from the Arabic -ساعة / ساعت sā'ah / sā'at, "clock", and the originally Turkish craftsman's suffix جي -çi, here transliterated chi.Saatchi in Tamil means "witness"....
Gallery in the Duke of York's Headquarters on King's Road
King's Road
King's Road is a street in Chelsea, London, England.King's Road or Kings Road may also refer to:* King's Road * King's Road * King's Road * King's Road...
.
During Hamburg Artweek (2011) he revealed new work showing a shift in the use of materials including smashed old porcelain symbolizing the destruction of our family traditions.
Personal
Arne Quinze married his wife Barbara BeckerBarbara Becker
Barbara Becker is a German American designer, actress and model.-Biography:Barbara Becker was born to an African-American photographer, Harlan Feltus, and a German teacher, Ursula....
at their Miami waterfront home on 9 September 2009. They celebrated the marriage on 12 September 2009 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Quinze lives and works in Sint Martens Latem nearby Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...
, Belgium.
In October 2011, Barbara Becker
Barbara Becker
Barbara Becker is a German American designer, actress and model.-Biography:Barbara Becker was born to an African-American photographer, Harlan Feltus, and a German teacher, Ursula....
and Quinze divorced.
Further reading
- Jean-Pierre Frimbois (Author), Sieghild Lacoere (Author): MODERN CONTEMPORARY Arne Quinze. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7757-2693-1
- Various Authors, Sieghild Lacoere (Editor): ROUEN IMPRESSIONNEE Arne Quinze - CAMILLE LES JARDINS. Atelier Arne Quinze, Sint Martens Latem 2010
- Arne Quinze (Author), Pieterjan Mattan (Author): THE SEQUENCE Arne Quinze. Gestalten, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89955-243-0
- Arne Quinze (Author), Robert Klanten and Lukas Feireiss (Editors): Arne Quinze WORKS. Gestalten, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89955-219-5
- Max Borka (Author): CITYSCAPE Arne Quinze. Gestalten, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89955-203-4
External links
- The work of Arne Quinze
- Facebook Arne Quinze
- Red Beacon, Shanghai website (2010)
- Camille Les Jardins, Rouen wesite (2010)
- The Sequence weblog (2008)
- Cityscape weblog (2007)
- The creative frenzy of Arne Quinze - La Galerie de Pierre Bergé & associés
- Artinfo, "The Curious Constructions of Arne Quinze", Interview
- I Love Belgium, Arne Quinze Sculptures, Blog