Auke de Vries

This month the sculptor Auke de Vries was presented with the Cultural Award 2005 of the city of The Hague. Auke de Vries received this prestigious award for “his unique achievements as an artist and for his invaluable contribution to the image of The Hague as a city of culture”. The award consists of a sculpture and prize money amounting to 25,000, Euros to be spent on the realization of an art project. This has resulted in the book “Photo Archive Auke de Vries” and the exhibition “After the Rain/Slow Speed Paradise” at Stroom Den Haag.

Auke de Vries is very well known for his sculptures in public space, both in The Netherlands and abroad. His exhibition at Stroom Den Haag, however, focuses on a less publicized aspect of his work, namely his ideas and projects in the field of landscape design and urban development. Auke de Vries presents two projects, one for Südraum Leipzig and one for Istanbul, by means of installations, sculptures, photographs and (wall) drawings. Thus he emphatically shows his engagement with specific situations within a sociohistorical context. In Istanbul he made a sculpture condemning the architectural gap between the slums and the plazas (After the Rain). For Sudraum Leipzig, in former East Germany, he developed plans for the revival of an area eroded by browncoal mining (Slow Speed Paradise). With these ideas Auke de Vries aims to inspire others to look as the landscape in a more creative way; the end result is not necessarily an autonomous piece of art.

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Auke de Vries “After the Rain/Slow Speed Paradise”