Johan Creten

Johan Creten’s ceramic and bronze sculptures represent a world in which nothing has a fixed shape. People, animals, plants and insects encroach on and partly merge with one another. His large ceramic torsos, for example, have a skin of sharply pointed roses, rough scales or overripe figs under dripping layers of colored glazing. Their beauty and erotic aura makes them fascinating. But they are also repellent in that their transformations confront us with our own transience and mortality.

The work that Johan Creten has made for Sonsbeek 2008 is titled The Cradle. As is often the case with Creten, it combines a contemporary artistic way of thinking with old art and a great feeling for craftsmanship, tradition and symbolism. For The Cradle, craftsmen wove three beehives from straw and a cradle from twigs, which were then cast in bronze according to an ancient technique. The gleaming gold beehives house a total of 150,000 bees. Each hive has holes like a mouth and two eyes through which the bees fly in and out - the symbol, says Creten, of positive language and truth in the eyes. The bees stand for the community and the creative energy that comes from collaboration. The cradle, a large basket in which the nurse used to take care of the baby, is an icon representing the birth of civilization. In Sonsbeek Park the bees fly to and from this work of art that stands in the middle of a lake.

The Cradle, together with a beehive, were borne during the Procession by the Guild of Arnhem Burghers, Siza Dorp Groep and Entrepreneurs.