In 2020, the Kunstmuseum Den Haag bought Hunting Clouds, 2018. This sculpture is now on permanent display in the museum. It is the first sculpture in which Heringa/Van Kalsbeek create a setting, like a theatre, a diorama. The image is dynamic, a crime scene, a residue of a series of sculptural scenes.
It is the start of a series of sculptures, in which sculptural scenes take place within the setting with a mirrored wall. The performance seems to be controlled from behind, backstage, by a complex chaotic supporting structure. Frontstage is not possible without backstage.
Through a donation, the series Splendor-Spring, Summer, Winter, 2013 was also included in the collection of the Kunstmuseum this month. An important series of works investigating whether images can be a result of action rather than of solidifying a shape.
The origins of this series are the Samurai that Heringa/Van Kalsbeek made in 2004 as Artists in Residence in Paris. A charcoal drawing of a Japanese temple statue in Musée Guimet was embedded in what is perhaps best described as a three-dimensional painting. Lines and surfaces of steel, wood, rope and parts of plants absorb the core, which merges into a dynamic and sensuous excess of color and form.
Stand
Theatre, science fiction, setting for a Shakespearean drama, sharp and flashy - the new works by Heringa/Van Kalsbeek will fill and shape the BorzoGallery stand, flanked by two Samurai works from 2004.
As a Zero contrast, on the wall is a series of embossings by Jan Schoonhoven, 'remakes' by Henk Peeters and works by Jan Henderikse from recent years.
Finally, a large and recent painting by Hans van Hoek will partly determine the image of the stand.