01 march 2024, Wouter van den Eijkel
Big and Small - Tom Claassen at Beelden aan Zee & online
An overview of the work of sculptor Tom Claassen is currently on display at Beelden aan Zee in The Hague. In the exhibition, Claassen alternates between outdoor work on a monumental scale and smaller pieces, always with the typically round, somewhat chunky forms through which Claassen reduces every human, animal or object to its most essential features – just enough for the viewer to form an image.
Parallel to this, Galerie Fons Welters has curated an online-only exhibition on Gallery Viewer featuring more manageable works of art. We spoke with Tom Claassen about the exhibition at Beelden aan Zee, his working methods and the origins of his visual language.
Generous
"I was thinking big," says Tom Claassen (1964) about his most famous group of sculptures, the so-called elephants along the A6/A27 near Almere. "If you place a sculpture outdoors and it turns out small, there’s no point." Each of the five elephants measures 7 by 11 meters and it takes 12 seconds to drive past them.
Tom Claassen, Elephants, 2000
Like the Elephants, Claassen's sculptures often playfully relate to their surroundings, such as the Mole on a Railway Tunnel in Best (2009), Rabbits in a Park in Rotterdam (2003), Horse in Utrecht (1996) and Sitting Men (2000), the two exhausted, slumped figures in the departure hall at Schiphol Airport.
"When the elephants were placed (in 2000), the landscape wasn't as crowded. The grey elephants stood out sharply against the clear blue sky. Bam! Sort of like inverse cumulus clouds, elephant clouds if you will. They clearly don't fit under the viaduct, which makes you wonder how they got there."
Tom Claassen, Untitled (Buffel/Buffalo), 2011, Galerie Fons Welters
Pallet stackers
The monumental dimensions of many of his works were also a challenge Claassen faced in preparing for his exhibition at Beelden aan Zee. "You want to provide an overview of everything you've made, with both large and small work. The problem with the large work is that it’s in public spaces and both transporting and reproducing it is costly."
"I still had a bison in storage and three dancing bison seemed like a good idea, but such a bison is expensive; the milling alone is extremely expensive." This forced Claassen to be creative. He decided to bring Scheveningen into the museum in the form of pallets.
"The people of Scheveningen have a unique way of celebrating the new year. They stack pallets and set them on fire. A nice contrast with the elegant Beelden aan Zee. Nowadays, we like to connect things, bring worlds together. By bringing the pallet stackers into the museum, I am connecting high and low culture," Claassen explains in a way that blurs the line between jest and seriousness.
Claassen ultimately created three towering sculptures of pallets – only three, even though he toyed with the idea of making 20. But the museum also wanted to display some of his animal sculptures. "The pallet men are not only a strong environmental concept, but also a circular concept. After the exhibition, the pallets are returned to the factory." Claassen also created an immense Gulliver specifically for the exhibition, constructed from seven blue pontoon blocks and a yellow buoy. "It's a kind of land art in assembly style; with me, you get to keep your options open."
Tom Claassen, Museum Beelden aan Zee. Photo: Gerrit Schreurs
An anti-mannerist wave
However divergent the material and method may be, the pallet men and Gulliver are characteristic Claassen, who is known for reducing every human, animal or object to its essence. It's a style Claassen developed after completing his education. Alongside his other work, he chose to work figuratively, and in a style that went against the norm.
"For my first solo exhibition at the Adriaan Wulfse Startgalerie – yes, that's really what it was called – I made a sculpture of a lion rug. I deliberately chose a female lion, because then I didn't have to do the manes. Let all those curls be left to all the Leonardos. At some point, there was an anti-mannerist wave in my head. Finicky mannerism is only about mastery and skill. To me, it's about the presence of the sculpture, not about how it came into being. That's why I choose materials that you can't fiddle with."
Online exhibition
Those who may think that Claassen has a gigantic warehouse at his disposal are sadly mistaken. His studio in Breda is only 70 m2. "That includes space for my computer, so there's really no room for messing around and getting dirty." More space would be nice, but isn't necessarily essential because Claassen only makes polystyrene models for his larger work.
In the process, he has developed into an artist who outsources the larger work. "For Raft (1996), the large raft I made for the Nijmegen Mental Health Services, I enlarged my model myself. I thought this something I had to do myself. They hadn't explained to me yet that model enlargement is a job in itself." Many of the smaller works in the online exhibition are casts of Claassen's models.
Tom Claassen, Marsman, 2021, Galerie Fons Welters
