Narcisse Tordoir

In the lobby of Dante Building, you can find a rotating panel by Belgian artist Narcisse Tordoir (b. 1954), which shows the contours of the Netherlands. The work was created in 1989, when the university began to attract more and more international students. Tordoir's work consists of two rotating panels, a kind of fence, which can be used to direct flows of visitors. In the fences the contours of, for example, the islands of Zeeland are visible.
The same theme is also worked out in the small painted panels attached to the back wall of the hall. There you can see recognizable contours, but also graphic representations of trees and images that are most reminiscent of pictograms.

This multiplicity is worked out soberly and modestly by Tordoir who has built a body of work that includes installations, public artworks (in metal), as well as two-dimensional work that is often painted, but Tordoir also often uses large photographic digital prints mounted on panels.

The two rotating panels are related to the fences that Tordoir made a few years later for Barcelonaplein and Hudsonhof in Amsterdam. Tordoir is also associated with that city as a lecturer at the Rijksacademie.