The Red Secret (Het Rode Geheim – 10 elements)

About this artwork.

A smooth polished sculpture is surrounded by nine rough fragments. The whole seems to represent a rocky landscape, from which a head rises. The five-metre-high "head" consists of ninety stacked blocks of red granite. This stacking creates a pattern of lines that seem to refer to human thought and the complex network of the brain. Gudmundsson said himself about this work: “My works of art are not an illustration or account of my thoughts. They can express what they are. It's all about the look you're experiencing.”
 
According to Sigurdur Gudmundsson, the Swedish red granite from which the artwork is made matches the colour of Groningen, which he has always experienced as “red”. In the nineteen-sixties, the artist lived in Zandeweer, a small village in the north of this province. Gudmondsson's colour experience is based on the typical redness of the older buildings in the villages and towns of Groningen. Because the oily sea clay – the raw material for the brick production in Groningen – is ferruginous, the brick acquires that characteristic red colour.
 
Around 1980, Gudmundsson – who initially created photographic work – began making sculptures consisting of heavy materials such as granite and concrete. Gradually a number of fixed motifs formed in his sculptures. One of these is the head without a face – the primal form without individual features. Other archetypes are the tower, the house and the boat.

Facts & Figures.

• Design
  Sigurdur Gudmundsson

• District
  Oosterparkwijk

• Year of creation
  1998

• Art type
  Freestanding sculpture

• Material
  Granite (Swedish)

• Dimensions
  h 5,00; doorsnede 15,00 m