index of sculptures 1988 to 2024
Mediator
2019
Bas-relief in salvaged wood #126, 99 x 212 x 13cm.
In March 2019 Van der Ende paid a visit to artist Diet Wiegman in his Schiedam studio. He knew Wiegman to possess a collection of masks from around the globe, collected through the decades on auctions and flea-markets. The visit resulted in a series of photos of the back of these masks.
“I chose an African tribal mask as a starting point for the Mediator sculpture because it had an interesting shape and appearance. In all probability, it came from the Senufo culture in the region of Southern Mali, Northern Ivory Coast en Western Burkina Faso. Wiegman had bought this mask in an auction some 35 years ago, without any documentation. To try and reconnect it to its place of origin I collected street photos from the region and incorporated those into the work. The mosaic is executed in the strict color scheme of the local Bògòlanfini or ‘mudcloth’ technique, with dirty whites, red and yellow earth tones and black.”
The title Mediator comes from a quote from Pablo Picasso about his visit to the Trocadéro ethnographic museum in Paris in 1907, an occasion Picasso sees as the birth of modern art.
“When I went to the old Trocadéro, it was disgusting. The Flea Market. The smell. I was all alone. I wanted to get away. But I didn’t leave. I stayed. I stayed. I understood that it was very important: something was happening to me, right?
The masks weren’t just like any other pieces of sculpture. Not at all. They were magic things. But why weren’t the Egyptian pieces or the Chaldean? We hadn’t realized it. Those were primitives, not magic things. The Negro pieces were intercesseurs, mediators; ever since then I’ve known the word in French. They were against everything—against unknown, threatening spirits. I always looked at fetishes. I understood; I too am against everything. I too believe that everything is unknown, that everything is an enemy! Everything! “
(Picasso’s Mask, André Malraux, New York, 1976, p10-11)
Part of the Markers exhibition at Ron Mandos gallery, Amsterdam in 2020.
