herman makkink‘s sculptural adventures have a fascination that is born from the rough and ready type of expressionist approach. his work is diverse but i find their scale and texture very successful, especially the pieces from the sixties and seventies. he developed his own story telling technique with boxed compositions that capture scenes of suspense or intrigue reminicent of a window in a strip cartoon. these have illustrative titles like ‘nosferatu resting’ or ‘an exciting fire’. his sculptures with gnomes and humorous alternative depictions is another case of this storytelling impulse. from the eighties onward he focussed more on a central-massive-object style as opposed to his more manicured manipulations and narratives.
his unconscious almost automatic way with objects and limbs are intentionally unconcerned with aesthetics and more about the expression of chaos and disintegration. my favourite works remain the obviously erotic ‘rocking machine’ (of stanley kubrick’s ‘a clockwork orange’ fame) and the subversive ‘christ unlimited’ both of which were executed in 1970 as well as the 1993 ‘vlindermolen’ sculpture in nieuw sloten, amsterdam.