A selection of works that can be found on 'Rijksakademie on the map'.

On 'Rijksakademie on the map' you will find works by Jan Toorop, Hildo Krop, Constance Wibaut, Constant and Karel Appel, and also by a contemporary generation of alumni, such as Aam Solleveld, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Ebru Özseçen, Amalia Pica and Papa Adama. Behind each statue, facade stone, monument or installation lies a whole story; about the artist, about the process of creation, about statues gone missing or that have been relocated, or sometimes also about the controversy surrounding its presence in the city.

Here we highlight four artworks that are currently topical:

'National Slavery Monument' by Erwin de Vries at Oosterpark – yesterday, July 1st, was the annual national commemoration of the abolition of slavery;

'Monument Indië-Nederland' (until 2004 'Van Heutsz Monument') by Frits van Hall at Olympiaplein – this controversial monument is again under discussion;

'The bather' by Hildo Krop on the facade at the Marnix Swimming Pool – this year is Hildo Krop 2020 jubilee year;

'Tulip Palepai' by Jennifer Tee at the subway hall at Central Station – last Friday she won the Amsterdam Prize for the Art 2020 in the category 'proven quality'.

The Surinamese painter and sculptor Erwin de Vries (1929-2018) studied at the Rijksakademie from 1958 to 1960. Several of his artworks can be found on the map. His most famous work is undoubtedly the 'Nationaal monument slavernijverleden' (National Slavery Monument) in the Oosterpark (2002). Every year on July 1st, the national commemoration of the abolition of slavery takes place here (July 1st, 1863), last Wednesday in an adapted character because of Covid-19. The three different statues that make up the monument represent the past (the horrors of slavery), the present (breaking the chains), and the future (complete liberation). The story goes that De Vries sculpted the design of the monument in clay in just under two hours. De Vries was appointed honorary citizen of Amsterdam in 2009. During his sixty-year career, he made many busts of, among others, Anton de Kom, Joop den Uyl and Toon Hermans, in addition to painting. His statue of Elieser (2013), an enslaved African who was buried in the Jewish cemetery Beth Haim in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel after his death in 1629, was smeared with the racist slogan WLM (White Lives Matter) at the end of June during a commemoration of the Surinamese community.

Already at the time of its construction in 1935, the ‘Indië-Nederland Monument’ on Olympiaplein, then the ‘Van Heutsz Monument’, was controversial. Military commander and governor-general Joannes van Heutsz, while enjoying the admiration of Queen Wilhelmina, was also 'the Butcher of Aceh'. He was responsible for many thousands of deaths, including women and children, during his extremely violent conquest of the Indonesian province of Aceh, at the time of the Dutch colonial rule. As the years passed, resistance to the monument increased. It was defaced and vandalised several times and in 1967 and 1984 action groups attempted to blow it up. Also, the plaque with the effigy of Van Heutsz was stolen (and never found again). It was not until 1997 that the Oud-Zuid district began to think about a new meaning for the monument. And it took another eight years before the name and function were finally changed in 2004. No longer a badge of honour for Van Heutsz, but "a memorial that recalls the relationship between the Netherlands and the Indies during the colonial period". Last June – in the wake of the Black Lives Matters protests – the monument was pelted with red paint bombs, opening again the discussion on the presence of this monument. The sculptor of the controversial work was communist Frits van Hall (1899-1945). It remains a question why he accepted the commission at the time. During the Second World War, Van Hall was active in the artists' resistance. He was arrested and deported to Auschwitz. After the camp was evacuated, he was executed during the death march.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of sculptor Hildo Krop (1884-1970). 2020 is therefore officially Hildo Krop year. He was employed by the municipality for four decades. In 1956 this earned him the honorary title of 'city sculptor'. A whole map could actually be dedicated to Krop, so many facing bricks, bridge sculptures and statues of this former confectioner decorate the streets of Amsterdam. So many, in fact (more than a hundred works in total) that it was decided not to include his reliefs in the map. More than twenty other sculptures are included, amongst others ‘De baadster’ (The Bather). In the early fifties Krop was commissioned to make a sculpture for the Marnixbad swimming pool. It became a five-metre high nude female figure with long wavy hair that was placed on the facade on the street side. When the pool was renovated in 2005, it was decided to demolish the statue. But Krops grandson put a stop to this and demanded that the statue be reinstated. He got his way, but then the statue was 'lost'. It was not recovered until 2019. You can now find it on a lot less prominent spot on the waterfront, above the emergency exit…

One of the more recent works on the map is 'Tulip Palepai' by Jennifer Tee (1973), which since 2017, in the run-up to the opening of the North-South metro line, adorns a wall of the metro hall at Central Station. The work is a digitised mosaic of dried and pasted tulip petals and is shaped as a palepai, an Indonesian ceremonial tapestry, or ship's cloth, often with a ship on it as the dominant motif. For Tee, resident at the Rijksakademie in 2000 and 2001, many personal stories came together in this work. Her grandfather and great-grandfather both worked in the tulip trade, and her father came by ship from Indonesia to the Netherlands in 1950, together with his parents and sister. 100,000 tulip petals, fifteen tulip growers and six artists were involved in the creation of the work. The tulip petals were first picked, then selected by colour and size and finally dried in a special cabin before the actual 'making' of the artwork could begin. Last Friday Tee won the Amsterdam Prize for the Art 2020 in the category 'proven quality'.

‘Rijksakademie on the map' is available in Dutch and English and can be purchased for €4.95. Here you can also play or download Hans Aarsman's podcast tour for free (only in Dutch).