Jumping Girl

Willem Lenssinck

Willem and Catherine had a fair in Munich with Kunsthaus Bühler. They had an abstract moving sculpture. If you walked past it or tapped it, the whole sculpture moved. A kind of Jean Tinguely. In America, you saw 1001 of those kinds of things, moving sculptures for the garden. A bit of a hackneyed idea. Willem and Catherine enjoyed tapping the sculpture all evening, making it move. Many people liked this, and the entire collection sold out. Kurt Zimmermann, the owner of Kunsthaus Bühler, said afterwards: 'You shouldn't make those static sculptures but sculptures that move.' When he got home, he came up with the idea of making a woman's torso with three rolls of clay and flattening it with a board. He went to the factory and asked for boobs. The man said, 'Yes, but what shape do you want?' Willem asked, 'Are you married? Yes. Then you know what they look like.' He made two versions. One was mainly made on feeling, and it was perfect. Behind the breast is a spring with screw thread. Then they had to move or jump. Springs were ordered from another factory, and a construction was made with cylinders. If you now press on the top of the sculpture and release it, the boobs shake back and forth. Jumping Girl, therefore.

62 x 17 cm

Bronze & Granite

2007