Marc Ruygrok, 'EN/OF', 1993

Location: Center of The Hague: Spui - Grote Marktstraat - Kalvermarkt

Language and sign.These have been the building blocks for his sculptures since the early 1980s. Marc Ruygrok (1953) occupies himself in drawings, photographs and sculpture with letters, words and short sentences. This is also the case with his 1993 copper pedestal sculpture “AND/OF.

On its pedestal in the center of The Hague, Ruygrok's sculpture is a clear statement.'AND/OF' refers to the countless choices we have to make where you are offered everything and where you are overloaded with visual impressions.

At the same time, the image provides a resting point by typographically deviating from the chaotic store logos. The sleek letters are stacked on top of each other word by word. The two words are back to back with the slash like plate upright between them. This gives the artwork the form of a compact structure that stands like a house.

The robust forms of Ruygrok's art are more often reminiscent of architecture. His spatial language images, for example, like architecture, are strongly connected to the environment where they are placed. Just look at the pedestal sculpture in The Hague or “Hier” placed at Museum de Paviljoens in Almere in 1993. From a huge sphere of copper, the word 'here' was spared. Ruygrok, however, unsettles the sober designation of place by making the sphere rotatable. The viewer gets to decide what 'here' is.

'Here' and 'AND/OF' are typical Ruygrok imagery. They are extremely short poems that can appear enigmatic. They show his preference for geometric shapes, such as the rectangle and the circle. With these archetypal shapes and signs recognizable to all, Ruygrok developed his own visual vocabulary.