BlowUp Art The Hague 2024
This year, BlowUp Art The Hague’s focus is on the heart of the city, (since the 13th century) the Hofvijver. The temporary festival of blow-up artworks in Museumkwartier Den Haag is set like a lush garden on a floating pontoon, on which fabulous creations by leading Dutch designers steal the show.
The colorful blow-up artworks were designed especially for BlowUp Art The Hague. For this edition, Mary Hessing, the curator of BlowUp Art The Hague, selected four renowned Dutch design luminaries: Studio Job, Studio Mieke Meijer, Marcel Wanders and Sigrid Calon.
Studio Job – Like a pan in the water
At Studio Job they work on unique pieces with the latest high-tech tools but also with traditional techniques that have all but disappeared in the Netherlands: bronze casting, stained glass or enameling. Former utensils such as a jerry can or a pan are completely transformed, enlarged, bent and if necessary provided with a golden nose.
Studio Mieke Meijer – Airboretum
This playful conjugation of “Arboretum” (a collection of living trees) indicates an installation of three air-infused trees designed by Studio Mieke Meijer. The tree-like structures rejuvenate in successive dimensions from trunk to branch side branches and twigs. Logical cohesion is found everywhere in nature; from plants to entire galaxies.
Marcel Wanders – Eggs
Marcel Wanders designed a collection of fantasy eggs. That egg shape is a recurring theme in a long career as a product and furniture designer. References to egg-like contours appear in lamps and chairs as well as candlesticks. The cheerfully decorated and mirrored eggs on the Hofvijver reflect the visitors and are actually also portraits of passersby in the heart of democracy: with opinions that sometimes clash, or receive a push to sway back upright.
Sigrid Calon – Gazebo
Sigrid Calon‘s inflatable artwork is a kind of paean to the prime minister’s “turret. This octagonal building probably dates from the first half of the 14th century and served as the summer gazebo of the Counts of Holland. Calon’s artwork recalls the symbolism of that original function and the loving openness Calon would like to see reflected in politics.
The nature-inclusive garden
The green elements of this special, floating garden with water features was realized by students from Yuverta’s “livable city and climate” department. They did this under the guidance of ecological landscape designer Deborah Treep and artist Frank Bruggeman.
Festival ‘BlowUp Art The Hague 2024’
Museumkwartier, The Hague
9 May — 2 June, 2024
denhaag.com/blowup-art-the-hague
Photography: Ronald Smits