Hugo Roelandt

A monument is made in the city with (objects that are typical for) the city. Building materials characteristic for an urban environment are used with a different, artistic function. Material: concrete paving stones, 30 × 30 × 5 cm. The project consists of the extension of a 2-dimensional row of paving stones (the footpath) into the 3th dimension: the row of stones is extended upwards the front of a house. The city in this way naturally flows over in its own monument. A movement, a displacement takes place that is constitutive for the monumental character of the work: material that is usually only used as a two dimensional flat plane, is used here three-dimensionally: as a stack, as a wall. The project is part of a series of architecturally oriented monumental ‘displacements’. Other works in the series were the use of a shipyard as a stage in the Boel-project (1985), a pyramid formed of everyday objects like tables (Keizershallenproject 1986), or plastic bags filled with water (Aalst, Fondacio Miro – Barcelona 1986), and an obelisk built out of new composite materials (Hard op de Tong, Beursschouwburg 1987).

(Abstracts from Hugo Roelandt: Let's Expand The Sky, red. Mark Holthof, Occasional Papers, London, 2016)