Door Hans Mes

10 wenken en Uiteinden van sculptor het standpunt:

1. Besluit of uw product uniek is of het beter is dan anderen om te weten of kunt u op uw gebied creëren of concurreren. Het boek van Nice: De kunst van Oorlogvoering.
2. Word ervaren in lezings Chinese gezichten en uitdrukkingen in houding en taal.
3. Vraag altijd een Chinese medewerker om uw fouten te verbeteren of een geheime wenk te geven als u geen dingen de manier doet die zij hebben verondersteld.
4. Me bewust ben van verschillende gevoeligheid in China. Wat wij aardig of slecht beoordelen betekent niet dat zij het zelfde en vice versa denken.
5. De vrouwen van de eerbied en verlaten een lege ruimte indien mogelijk in bijvoorbeeld metro.
6. De Chinese kinderen zijn het belangrijkste kapitaal van Chinese mensen omdat zij slechts hebben.
7. U kunt voor het vuile of moeilijke werk worden geprijst terwijl vele Chinese mensen het zelfde werk zonder enige eerbied doen omdat zij geen vreemdelingen zijn.
8. Zacht en vergevend ben zelfs als rangschikken niet op het spel staat; altijd handeling als heer.
9. Beschouw China als grote containership die politiek in de haven van de planning van hun overheid wordt gestuurd. Kritiseer nooit dit aangezien u hun impolite gast zult worden.
10. In China zult u vele verschillende kleine bedrijven wensen om het zelfde te bereiken als met grote hier over, zo bewust zijn u geduld en knappe multitasking nodig hebt.

Het REIZEN

Iets in me heeft zijn eigen manier

Ik volg het reizen
Met karakters in vorm en kleur
Ik cre�ër woorden van resonantie
Het schrijven van mijn verhaal
I follow the silent way of images
However fixed my ideas are moving
And sketch their way
Along unseen places

Hans Mes

xīn,心 zì,自 yǒu,有 tú,途，
suí,随 zhī,之 ér,而 xing,行，
yǐ,以 xíng,形 sè,色 zhī,之 tè,特 xìng,性，
chuàng,创 yán,言 yǔ,语 zhī,之 gòng,共 míng,鸣，
jì,记 qí,其 mìng,命。

wú,吾 mù,慕 kōng,空 xiāng,相 zhī,之 chén,沉 jìng,静，
zhì,志 suī,虽 jiān,坚 ér,而 yì,意 bù,不 tíng,停，
gōu,勾 lè,勒 qí,其 xíng,形，
zhí,直 zhì,至 wú,无 jìn,尽。

汉斯•迈斯

Since I was 19 years old I became fascinated by China. At first in a philosophical way until later, being a sculptor, Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal care commissioned me as a sculptor ( www.hansmes.com) to place a 6,50 metres high sculpture of a pole-vaulter in Zhuhai. Ever since I cherish my Chinese friends and my interest has grown to learn and understand more about nowadays China. Such an interest implied that I read almost anything about China, Chinese culture and its backgrounds, in order to place news facts and people in a better meaningful context.

More and more I discovered that Chinese as a tone language, a way of thinking and as a philosophy is based on movement from inside to outside. Chinese characters form the words and their meaning in sentences by combining meanings onto larger complexities whereas Latin languages try to catch such meaning as if a fence of description should be built around it. Which is the opposite way around by going from the outside to the inside. More and more I got interested in the ways our cultures differ in their content treatment in various ways: In translation, in philosophy, in art, in science, everywhere the same aspect causes people to bridge this strange phenomena.

But how about my bridge, creating my visual symbols of things invisible in China? Wishing to carry out my artworks in China personally as a professional sculptor on one hand and yet work outside the common gallery and museum circle on the other hand brings lots of limitations in networking and the branding of my name as an international operating artist. By working for commissioners only, carrying out the works myself, and selling them, my profession has these tree pillars as the base of my success: Artist, producer and sales manager. Being an artist requires talent. The rest is just a matter of hard working and obtaining knowledge every day. By doing so since 1979 I sold about 1350 sculptures in any size, material, technique and approach to companies, governments, institutions and collectors all over the world.

But China kept attracting me as the toughest market for the most difficult product to sell: Art. My preparations for this challenge begun with the forming of a group of artists and aiming my arrows on a relatively unknown city in China, Yantai in Shandong Province. To me this seemed a relative good crowbar to open doors and get in. I discovered the existence of the Netherlands Business Support Offices and went to a contact day at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. There I met Esther, at that time the Chief Representative of the NBSO Nanjing and replacing the lady of the NBSO Jinan, Shandong Province. She saw my enthusiasm and persuaded me to come to Nanjing and give it a try. So I started to initiate the group of artists. After that I set out our strategy and prepared a prospectus with my colleagues. I asked a man I once portrayed, Mr. Wil van den Berg, former Exec. Vice President van Philips Consumer Electronics and Chief Marketing Officer to lay my plans under the serious gunfire of his experience. He was a superb help in pinpointing the weak points and even offered to write the introduction for our prospectus.

In 2005 we set course to Nanjing and opened various doors to promote ourselves. But the one and only end result was an invitation to me for making three sculptures for DSM Jinling: In an atelier at their composite resin plant, with their materials and with tools provided. On arriving there DSM doubled that to six sculptures. I carried them out in 4,5 month while travelling back to Holland two times for the making of a sculpture about the late Prince Claus in a conservatory to be unveiled by H.M. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. DSM offered to publish a luxury book about my project “ART unlimited DSM”. To me this was an amazing success that I didn’t even dare to dream of before! Not only because my Nanjing project has lead to new chances that will take me to Nanjing again this year. But especially because my Chinese friends, the many Chinese co-workers at the DSM plant, and the people I have met learnt me to work better the Chinese way.

Making sculpture and selling it is done by the heart. The more you learn about China the better you’ll learn to work in the Chinese environment. Because getting familiar and being treated like family gives me the space I need for modelling it as a sculptor. Therefore China is the country where I can recharge my battery of enthusiasm and where I ‘d like to create art each year. Up to now that added value to my heart has set my ambition to China because I wonder: Can I create the invisible by changing it into visible reality with just a place of trust, a budget and a theme? That answer is: Yes, it’s my profession!

Hans Mes, www.hansmes.com