Eric van Hove Piece Enters MoMA Permanent Collection

The Museum of Modern Art has announced that Eric van Hove’s (CRF 2021) piece Al’atlassi (Wright R-790 Whirlwind) will enter their permanent collection.

The sculpture depicts the nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engine famously used by Charles Lindbergh on the Spirit of St. Louis for his solo transatlantic flight from New York City to Paris on May 20-21,1927. This maiden flight is seen as the event that initiated the era of commercial aviation and, at the end of the same century, resulted in the rise of low-cost airlines like Ryanair, which have had a deep impact on the craftsmanship sector in Africa. With the original engine on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, the engine was 3D-printed at full scale using Thermoplastic Aliphatic Polyester in order to be used for the sculpture production process.

This is the first sculpture produced by the artist’s atelier in Marrakech to be based on a modern era archaeological engine and it is the result of collaboration between 28 Moroccan master craftsmen over 18 months. While seas and oceans can be seen as frontiers and passageways, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean can also be seen as cemeteries for the many “Harragas” and migrants who have perished in the search of a better future. Consequently, the inner crate of the sculpture is shaped after the Almohad door of the Koutoubia in Marrakesh, and is stretched to resemble a mausoleum sided by two muqarnas and inlaid with the map of the world on top.

(Photo: Ruben van Vliet / Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands)

Al’atlassi (Wright R-790 Whirlwind) – Eric van Hove, 2019.
Mixed Media: White cedar wood, red cedar wood, walnut wood, lemon wood, orange wood, African mahogany, Wenge wood, Thuya wood, Ash wood, pink apricot wood, yellow copper, red copper, recycled aluminium, nickelled silver, silver, tin, domesticated cow bone, domesticated cow horn, domesticated ram’s horn, domesticated cow skin, paint, Chinese superglue, recycled brass, wood glue, neoprene glue, 3D-printed Polyethylene Terephthalate, steel, galvanized steel, cotton & sunflower oil.
Dimensions: 54 1/4 × 65 3/8 × 47 1/4″ (137.8 × 166 × 120 cm)
Weight: 200 Kg.