New in the sculpture garden
On the occasion of the exhibition Pjotr Müller, book for Mo, the sculpture Soleares tristes (2002) has been placed in the sculpture garden. This light-coloured sculpture is made of yellow sandstone and contrasts sharply with both the works by Müller that already grace the sculpture garden: Nuraghe (1983) and Temple of everyday life (1986).
Poem
Soleares tristes consists of loose stones that fit together precisely. The temple-like construction remains standing without the aid of any connecting material. Müller has chiselled words into the soft stone. Together these form sentences from J. Slauerhoff’s collected poems Soleares from 1933. In the collection, Slauerhoff describes an ambiguous sense of ‘wandering aimlessly’, inspired by Portuguese folk songs (fados) which are full of sadness, longing and melancholy, but also of joy and festive cheer.
Scale
Müller conducts research into structures and sculptures from various eras and cultures that were created not in an artistic, but in a religious context. Balancing on the interface between sculpture and architecture, Müller plays with the normal scale of objects. Due to the size of Soleares tristes, which is 1.6 metres tall, an interior space is created, the function of which is unclear: does the work offer shelter or is it oppressive?