Human concretion

/ Hans Arp /

The original plaster version  of Human concretion, donated to the museum by the Arp Foundation, dates from 1933, when the artist,  who had returned to sculpture a year previously, created the first pieces in a series of the same title which became symbolically associated with his name. For Arp, the body is the positive pole of man, a vessel for the emotions – sensuality and wisdom alike. The softness of working with plaster and its polish make it the ideal medium for an approach which reduces the body to anatomical curves in an allusive representation which is as tactile as it is spatial, for which the logical analogy would be a caress. Moreover, poetry is naturally never very far away with Arp, who left a significant body of written work.