INSTITUTIONAL GUERRILLA ART Open Access: the Public Sculpture of Florentijn Hofman
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INSTITUTIONAL GUERRILLA ART Open Access: The Public Sculpture of Florentijn Hofman by Anna lisa Zox-Weaver useums are not Florentijn Hofman’s site of As Hofman explains it, site-specific public art installations choice. “We do not live in a museum, and so involve a much more generous social and economic art must not always be confined to them— arrangement—people don’t have to buy a ticket and are Mit should be out among the people—it should ablego toto participate in the give and take between an art them.” Such declarations effectively situate Hofman piece and its urban or rural environment. in a long, wide-ranging antimuseum tradition. (Perhaps On this page: Rubber Duck illuminated during the test lighting none so strenuous as F. T. Marinetti’s avowal in his 1909 of the Nakanoshima Water Fantasia on December 13, 2014 in Manifesto of Futurism: “We will destroy the museums.”) Osaka, Japan, where it remained from December 15 to 25. Photos: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images. Shimbun/Getty Asahi The Photos: Although Hofman is unwavering in asserting rents from social response is a calculated act on He does not that his work is not political, by simply taking up Hofman’s part. By its very nature, social response public space—indeed, on such a grand scale—his reject the is heterogeneous, conflict-laden, interconstituent work is fraught with political significance if not with political meaning-making. In refuting political with political intention. Hofman’s work banks on dubious in implications, Hofman presumes to wield full con many of the recognizable fundamentals of gue tersections trol over his work’s meaning—in an act that sug rilla artistic expression: drawing upon the urban gestively conflates artist with work, intention with environment as his canvas, being gently humor of art and reception. This narrative also enacts a sharp de ous, and using nontraditional materials. But here’s commerce parture from some of guerilla art’s hallmark provo where Hofman hastily retreats. He does not reject cations around social justice and social inequality. the dubious intersections of art and commerce that guerilla In Hofman’s world, such bleak feelings are vacat that guerilla art bluntly critiques—he embraces ed from exchanges based in shared delight and art bluntly them. In fact, Hofman makes a virtue of commer experiences devoid of hierarchy or bias. “It makes cialism and mass-market aesthetics, explaining critiques—he you feel young again,” Hofman explains. “It refers that in terms of size and scale his pieces function to your childhood when there was no stress or as their own advertisement. Hofman even com embraces economic pressure, no worry about having to pay fortably characterizes his work in ways that most them. the rent.”3 contemporary artists would go to great lengths to Born and raised in the Netherlands, Hofman de avoid, describing his work as “McDonald’s taste.” scribes himself as a sculptor in his “blood.” For in Elaborating, “It’s not bad. There is something about us that spiration, he looks to the subjects and aesthetics of his youth, we like McDonald’s, and sometimes we want McDonald’s. It and directly responds to the previous generation’s preoccupa is food that is easy to access.” Elsewhere he has cited the tion with abstract art and big, declarative monuments. Some influence of master artists Johannes Vermeer and critics see his work less as rejecting the grandiose Jacob van Ruisdael1—painters whose work has en aspirations of monumental art than offering a varia dured not only for their aesthetic triumphs but also tion on it—a sort of “monumental kitsch,” as one because they are museum-bound, with guards and critic put it, adding, “It’s clear how easy it is for cities ticket prices and proper conservation practices to to lose sight of what makes public art really regis maintain them. Here, museums are institutions to ter. When it’s done right, public art expresses some be cherished. unique value about a city’s particular cultural van Hofman earned his international reputation in tage point. Rubber Duck has all the nutritional value 2007 with Rubber Duck, an exact replica of the ano and regional identity of a Diet Coke.”4 dyne bright yellow bath toy that stirs a host of warm childhood City governments have found Hofman’s work useful in buoy memories. As Hofman tells it, the inflatable figure demands no ing public morale and even altering the tone of downtrodden interpretation: We are meant to know it and love it on sight. He urban spaces. As part of cleanup and revitalization efforts in a anticipates that the haze of an idealized—and decidedly West particularly seedy area along the river in Pittsburgh, a nonprof ern-childhood will become a collective, social it organization called Riverlife, in collaboration experience in which people exchange ideas, City governments with the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership and share their delight, and participate in conver the city, commissioned a site-specific piece have found Hof sations. These conversations are unlikely to from Hofman. His work was part of a larger spark controversy—as one critic has remarked, man’s work useful plan to do away with the downtown riverfront’s these pieces are not a “Banksy street tableau graffiti-marred walls (one spray-paint declara or Pussy Riot punk performance.”2 It is youthful in buoying public tion reads, “Quality of life is quality of mind”) but not contrarian, outsized and humorous; the morale and even and alter the character of the area’s “the shad viewers’ sentiments (infinitely replicated in all owy niches... which once provided a haven other viewers) are an end in themselves. altering the tone for homeless people”5 by installing his Rub Rubber Duck “doesn’t have a political con of downtrodden ber Duck. The city now refers to that cheering notation,” Hofman explains. It is about “social transformation as “the duck moment.” Hofman response.” Surgically extracting political cur urban spaces. is the first to cite the duck’s urban alchemy. Of S culptur e Review 23 its visit to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, original work of a nineteenth-century de Hofman announced, “Hong Kong has signer whose efforts go unmentioned— been changed forever.” because Hofman very jealously protects Hofman’s work requires months of the commercial rewards of his work. In work and engineering and enjoys ex the face of criticism that he was becom tended publicity campaigns before ar ing exercised, that merchants were in rival. He sees this prelude as part of fringing on his copyrights, and that he the process. Here, again, he distances had assumed an unlawful monopoly over his work from the tactics of guerilla art the rubber duck icon, he repackaged his ists, who also operate through elements of surprise. Crowds visit to the 2013 Beijing Design Week as an effort to “drive do not just come to see the work; they are waiting when it an awareness programme raising the sensibility towards intel makes its entrance. This elaborate promotional effort takes lectual property rights around China.”6 In a politic sleight of Hofman’s work far afield of guerilla art. One hand, then, Hofman managed to cast an art happens upon a Banksy stencil in London or Here, again, he ist’s promotional visit as an opportunity to raise a Rubikcubism by invader in a Paris neighbor awareness about how he is getting fleeced by distances his work hood. Hofman’s work is its own destination. In Chinese piracy and lucrative copycat sales. Asia, some 20 million people visited Rubber from the tactics Hofman will occasionally grant that his art Duck in 2013—a statistic he interprets as “ap has greater purpose than mere visual plea plause for art in public space in general. I am of guerilla artists, sure. On this subject, Hofman references Pig not the star—people came to see the work.” who also operate Juggeling [sic] with Strawberries (Veghelbu- Perhaps Hofman protests too much. He cer iten 2010)—part merchant kiosk, part guardian tainly foregoes guerilla art’s indispensable el through elements of the strawberry fields and pig farms that sur ement of anonymity. of surprise. round it. Butthejolly pink pig is also dressed as Although the 2013 tour of Rubber Duck a butcher, explains Hofman, so that even as he through Osaka, Japan, Kaohsiung, Taoyuan, juggles fruit with oblivious cheer, his costume and Beijing, China, and back to Osaka so suggests that he will eventually slaughter lidified his reputation, Hofman has worked himself. Commissioned for Holland’s most prolifically in the Netherlands since 2003, ambitious land art exhibition, Pig presided expanding his global reach through Europe, over a site that would soon yield to housing into the United States, and finally to Brazil, developers who would promptly dislocate Mexico, and Australia. What remains con the farmers. Suddenly, the blissful-looking spicuously absent is the African continent. pig represents political deception at work: One can only speculate on the reasons for The farmers themselves are to be butchered this missing stop on Rubber Duck’s global by ambitious financial interests. For a time, tour. The arrangements to be made between Pig animated the fields around him, but also Hofman and his host cities involve complex designated a space to gratify commercial ap negotiations around artist’s fees, transporta petites that blithely ignored the implications tion, assembly, and other logistics. Hofman’s for the farmers whose livelihoods depended compensation comes from the cities them on it. Musk Rat (Nieuwerkerk aan den Ijs- selves (in an era of egregious infrastructure Hofman sees all his sel 2004) also plays both ways.