Emo Verkerk, 'Sperwer', 2005

Amidst the gleaming stainless steel pipes on Emo Verkerk's (1955) pedestal sculpture, a black bird is only discovered when you get closer. The work somewhat resembles the image of a flying duck (Spring Duck, 1990), which the artist created shortly after his father's passing. In that piece, the duck’s flight is suggested by the flowing movement of the material. In this pedestal sculpture, Verkerk does something similar. The pipes evoke the image of a cage, but they could also represent the flight of a hawk.

The pedestal sculpture is not immediately recognizable as a "Verkerk." He is best known for his portraits—essentially collages of painted pieces of canvas, wood, or cardboard—through which he made his breakthrough into the art world right after graduating from Ateliers '63 in 1980. The inspiration for these portraits came from an influential interview with the British painter Francis Bacon, which convinced him that a work of art must possess its own expressive power. For Verkerk, this meant that as an artist, you must feel deeply connected to the subject. This led him to depict writers, musicians, and visual artists he admired. He gave them attributes and surroundings that fit his personal vision of them.

After receiving significant media attention in the 1980s, Verkerk gradually began creating two types of work: on one hand, more traditionally painted portraits and landscapes, and on the other, assembled objects, such as birds. Unlike his portraits, he made these from memory—“original and without reflection.” The birds are composed of scraps of leftover material, such as wood, a doorknob, or a fishing bobber, sometimes still painted. The pedestal sculpture with the cap as a beak is an assemblage cast in stainless steel and bronze.