As I wrote the update of my “Context” page, I mentioned my brother Louis, and would like to elaborate a little on this, wanting to share with you what he wrote for the publication for, and his contribution to, the exhibition at the Fort aan de Drecht in Amsterdam in 1986:

‘I don’t want a purely rational concept for a piece of art

I am looking for an archetypical rendition of a deep inner feeling.

It can be expressed in a place where the event or the image belongs and in which the myth of our existence and history is kept.

An obelisk is a materialization of that which indicates the higher; ‘the higher’ however is not to be captured in ‘spatial objects’. Spatial objects are subject to the limitation of space and furthermore the limitless is difficult to express in matter.

I burn the symbol (the obelisk), release it from its spatial limitation, the smoke rises.

In this given the elements are absorbed as birth and death, come into being and decay, and besides it is also very beautiful to watch someone breathe fire.

Only the ashes and the myth of the obelisk remain.’

~ Louis van Amsterdam (1986)