Slewe Gallery is pleased to open the New Year with an exhibition with new works by Dutch sculptor Ruud Kuijer (*1959). Kuijer, who will have a presentation of his works at the Rietveld Pavilion in the famous sculpture park of the Museum Kröller-Müller this coming summer, will show a series of seven new steel sculptures, the so-called Spring Sculptures (Veerbeelden).
In 2023, Ruud Kuijer began what became a series of seven sculptures. For years he had been searching for a way to use the spring - made of iron, yet flexible - in an expressive manner within his sculpture. The results of this exploration can now be seen at Slewe Gallery.
According to Ruud Kuijer: ‘The arrangement of the geometric steel elements appears free and loose. Each has its own direction. They turn away from one another rather than seeking each other out. They remain themselves. Where they touch in passing, a weld has been made. The spring is a contrasting, almost organic form that is part of the whole - apparently in a relaxed manner. Yet the spring is trapped within the seemingly coincidental arrangement and is under enormous physical tension. The Spring Sculptures are “doubly” concrete: they are not only concrete, physically present sculptures; they also address actual physical force.’
Kuijer is known for his series of large concrete sculptures along the banks of the Amsterdam Rijnkanaal in Utrecht, the so-called Waterworks. For these casts he used plastic water related objects, such as rowing boats and surf boards. The forms of these objects are stacked and linked into his abstract assemblages. The artist considers concrete a sustainable material and a modern variant of bronze. In addition to concrete, he also works in iron, as recently in his I-beam sculptures and now in these spring sculptures.
Kuijer lives and works in Utrecht. He studied at the Koninklijke Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving in Den Bosch and the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. His works are collected internationally by private and public collections, such as Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Kunstmuseum The Hague, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen. Recently, in 2024 he had an exhibition with his sculptures in dialogue with chairs by Gerrit Rietveld in Centraal Museum Utrecht.