On July 15, three years after his death, the artwork “Against All Currents” was unveiled as a monument to Peter R de Vries. Rini Hurkmans, who made the sculpture, found inspiration from Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s in Rome – not coincidentally, Mayor Halsema referred in her speech to De Vries as a hero, but not a saint. The Pietà is an iconographic theme that is a constant in Hurkmans’ oeuvre. With a hand gesture, Mary, mourning her slain son, involves the viewer in her grief. One of the hands that make up the new monument makes a similar gesture; a second reaches out for this outstretched hand.
Stadscuratorium Amsterdam, which substantively guided the selection and creation process, hopes that the monument may inspire many to go against the grain when justice is at stake.
