Ancient stones or an abstract body? Groot Landschap by Wessel Couzijn evokes associations with dolmens or organic forms, yet the artist assigned no fixed meaning to his sculpture. The artwork, which has rested on a specially constructed hill since 1974 at Sloterpark, is gigantic in scale: 22 meters long, 12 meters wide, and 3.5 meters high. Over the years, the piece fell into decay—corrosion ate away at the steel, graffiti covered its surface, and it even threatened to slide off the hill. Locals mockingly dubbed it the ‘great plane crash.’
Fortunately, the sculpture was given a second life. Thanks to an initiative by visual designer Geert Lebbing and support from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, among others, the work was restored in 2006.
Every week, het stadscuratorium posts a Sunday Sculpture on Instagram, the story behind an artwork in public space that gives colour to the city of Amsterdam.
