Leonard van Munster (born February, 1972, Zwolle), is a Dutch contemporary artist making Site-specific and Subject-specific work. He studied from 1992 to 1996 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. This included an exchange programme to Parsons School of Art and Cooper Union in New York.
Van Munster's installations are to be found mostly in public spaces, where the surroundings play an important role in the work and how it is experienced. Sometimes, he chooses a location that suits an already made sketch, and sometimes he makes a work especially for a specific location. Although his works at first glance have a cheery or boyish look about them, there is a more sensitive idea at their basis. Recurrent underlying themes are desire, homesickness and sentiment: a frozen moment of happiness or a childhood memory.
The sometimes even comical appearance of his work has the effect of a layer of pink sugar frosting. This can be witnessed in his Fata Morgana, built under the A10 highway in Amsterdam. An oasis under the highway, where palm trees, banana trees and flowers grow and a waterfall splashes down off some rocks. The sun appears always to be shining. All this is made of plastic and surrounded by metres-high steel fencing. He also built a tree, complete with tree-house, on the roof of the 50 metres high Stedelijk Museum when it was housed in the Post CS building in Amsterdam and in the Green Heart’ area of the Netherlands, he floated a log with, on it, a fox with a white flag in his paws. The often large objects he makes in public spaces can usually be viewed only for a short while. Take for instance, the recently completed work he made especially for the ‘World of Witte de With’ Festival: an island with a metropolitan structure in the middle of the pond between the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum and the Kunsthal in Rotterdam.
At the moment, Leonard van Munster is working on several projects including an installation commissioned by the Stadsschouwburg (Metropolitan Theatre) of Amsterdam, ‘The dancing White Man’.
Famous quotes containing the words leonard and/or van:
“The purpose of population is not ultimately peopling earth. It is to fill heaven.”
—Graham D. Leonard (b. 1921)
“Oh, London is a man’s town, there’s power in the air;
And Paris is a woman’s town, with flowers in her hair;
And it’s sweet to dream in Venice, and it’s great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.”
—Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)