M HKA Ensembles

Sculpture, 165 x 81 x 89 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK6064_M118).

This work by Didier Vermeiren consists of rectangular frameworks made of iron rods. Four wheels are fitted to each of them. The vertical rods appear to indicate the imaginary boundaries of a sculpture. The wheels suggest movement in space. We associate the form and material of these sculptures with, among other things, minimal sculpture. In Minimal Art, sculptures often have no back or front, left or right. However, in his cage sculptures Vermeiren often breaks away from this similarity of form: sometimes one of the vertical rods is square in section rather than round, while in other works the rods on one side may be covered in a layer of plaster, the wheels may indicate a direction of movement, or some other variation. In this way the sculptures do have a back and front, and left and right sides.

Vermeiren puts the identity of sculpture itself up for discussion. He examines such essential sculptural principles as volume, mass, weight and open and closed forms. The works also focus on the empty and the full, presence and absence, dynamism and motionlessness, horizontality and verticality, inside and outside, elevation and relocation.