Hans Verhoeven

In the summer of 2020, a book entitled ‘Stacked Moments’ (Gestapelde Monumenten) was delivered to Sculpture Gallery Het Depot. It was a beautiful self-published book with poems and images of a part of sculptor Hans Vervoeven’s body of work. The accompanying letter stated that he had finally found the courage to show his work to the world. He reached out to us because he believed his work would fit with the concept of Sculpture Gallery Het Depot. His many visits to Het Depot are still an inspiration to him.

The sculptures and poems by Verhoeven are inextricably linked. While they exist independently, they build on one another. In some cases, the poem completes the sculpture – in some it’s the other way around. The first thing that stands out is that the pictured body of work in Verhoeven’s book only exists of eight sculptures. The first one made in 2008, the last in 2018. That, however, is not the whole truth. Not all his sculptures have been included in the book; before 2008, he made abstract works. Not that he no longer stands behind those, but the figurative has become his signature. 

Hans Verhoeven(1947 - 2022) was born in 1947. He was a self-taught sculptor. He comes from a family of six kids: himself and five sisters. Having graduated from the hts chemistry degree, he started working at AKZO. Around 1970 his first abstract sculptures saw the light. Just focusing on science and chemistry did not satisfy him completely. The human element was not entirely missing, but was not present enough. In 1976 he started working at the Pompe clinic as a policy officer and construction manager. He specialized in the interior design, that is to say, the architectural and organizational plans for the Pompe clinic.

In 1976, he enrolled in the academy for social sciences. In 1984 he designed a structural plan for the Pompe clinic. From 1994 onwards he was responsible for setting up and organizing the new building for the Pompe institute’s forensic psychiatry outpatient clinic Kairos. Between 2000 and 2015 he worked as a construction manager for several clinics of the Nijmegen mental health care services, collaboration with architects and other scientists and specialists. All in all, he spent 1976 to 2016 working for the Pompe clinic and related institutions. This long working relationship of over forty years has clearly influenced Hans Verhoeven’s personality and thinking.

His work as an organizational specialist and construction manager influenced his work as a sculptor. This is very much visible in the structural elements of his works. But there is a second source of experiences in his life that has fed into the choices he made for his sculptures’ topics. The contact with people, in health care in general but specifically the contact with Pompe patients. These are two spheres of influence that fertilize and enrich each other, while at the same time competing for importance.

Interpreting sculptures, searching for the meaning of a work, is sometimes a precarious path to undertake – and especially in the case of Hans Verhoeven’s works. When asked if he could enlighten us on his intentions during the process of creating sculptures, his answer was homogenous with the following haiku:

A word with the sculpture

Steals the seeing of the viewer

Seeing...makes the story

Een woord bij het beeld

Steelt het zien van de kijker

Zien...maakt het verhaal

Beeld 2016-2

Abachi wood, stone, gold. 90 cm.

Hans Verhoeven emphasises the contradiction between head and body in this sculpture. Seeing the work, I come to a wholly different association. I see a gracious female figure, moving away from me. Her hair is a bundle of fiery rays. Her clothing finely shaped. I also see music in the sculpture. I see the image of a beautiful woman, walking as if in a ballet, while her headwear reminds me of the firebird in Igor Stravinsky’s ballet. Is it Wassilissa I am seeing, like in the Russian fairy tale, or is it Inez, Hans Verhoeven’s fairy tale princess? The image keeps reigniting from the ashes, like a mythical phoenix.

Hans Verhoeven was right: let everybody decide for themselves what they see in his sculpture.

watching,

watching again,

re-watching,

seeing

seeing...

seeing...spirited

kijken,

opnieuw kijken,

herkijken,

zien

zien...

zien...bezield

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2021    Beeldengalerij Het Depot, Wageningen