239 Things

1000 Things is a subjective encyclopedia of inspirational ideas, things, people, and events.

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Studium Generale 1000things lectures, The Hague

239 Things

The artist Michel Hoogervorst (1961) studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. Since 1990 on he teaches at the KABK at the Graphic Design department.

When is a work finished? What criteria should a work meet? For example, has the process of making been completed, does it meet all demands, have all other possibilities been explored and rejected?

Mondriaan was in the middle of making Victory Boogie Woogie, yet we see it as an important masterpiece. Isn't the beauty of Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia situated in the possibility that it may never be completed?

Karel Appel quite succinctly stated ‘I watch my paintings until they're finished’ (translated from Dutch, ‘ik kijk mijn schilderijen af’).

The Guggenheim in Bilbao shows/showed works that show yet another aspect of being-finished.

The oeuvres of both Anish Kapoor and Jeff Koons include work that show an exceptional duality, namely the completely finished work and the work that always holds a certain unfinished nature. As a result of thorough technical research, Koon’s work Tulips contains an astonishing impeccability that reaches the extent of perfection and finish.
In front of the museum is his Puppy that, through the growth of vegetation, displays an endless range of variation.
Kapoor’s mirror and pigment works are so immaculately construed and so pure in their execution that they require no addition or alteration, and seem forever petrified.

The works Shooting into the Corner and My Red Homeland, on the other hand, constantly change form through a repeated action or a constant movement.