Lies de Wolf
A long banner with classical coats of arms hangs from a medieval castle wall. The imprints are taken, however, from the abandoned hubcaps of modern cars. The Amsterdam-based sculptor and art historian Lies de Wolf had no need for ink or paint to create this compelling and ironic picture. Air pollution did the trick.
These specific heraldic banners were handmade for Pensées Sauvages V, the fifth biennial international art exhibition held in the Parisian suburb of Dourdan. Lies de Wolf has participated from the second edition onwards with her own Wild Thoughts. The most recent being this installation for the wall of the courtyard of the Castle of Dourdan (June 2018). It has won her ample public acclaim from visitors, and rightly so.
Lies de Wolf was born to a pioneer family in the newly created Noord Oost Polder in the year 1952, only a decade after the draining of this former open sea. Perhaps this, as well as her accomplishments as a historian, help explain her penchant for historical places. During her formal training as a sculptor she developed her lifelong enthusiasm for everyday materials, transferred to an unusual context. Finding a filthy hubcap on the side of the road was the prompt for another of her Wild Thoughts. Cleaning the black deposit to reveal the shine proved impossible because of the adhesiveness of the soot and dust. Yet hidden beneath the grime, the hubcaps also carried symbols denoting the brand and status of the cars.
The installation at Dourdan castle highlights the resemblance between a commercially-designed hubcap of today and the heraldic devices inscribed on the shields that protected, as well as advertised, knights during the Middle Ages.
- Johan Sturm
P.S. Read here if the Unicorn Tapestries were an allegory of Christ or rather of a happy husband.