Hers

Job Smeets, born in Belgium in 1969, is a world-famous designer and a highly influential figure in the art and design world. Smeets is known for his unconventional approach and the seamless combination of art with design. He creates work in which nothing is self-evident; expressive freedom is everything to Job Smeets. His company Studio Job has offices in the Netherlands and Milan and employs dozens of people. These include traditional craftsmen such as sculptors, bronze casters and stained glass makers, as well as experts in working with laser and 3D printing.

Smeets’ sculpture “Hers”, which stands in front of the Quartz building, is five metres high. The bronze-cast female hand holding the illuminated letter Q is a tribute to the female architect of the Q Residences residential complex, American Jeanne Gang. Smeets used his own wife’s hand as a model for the statue. “What else could I have chosen for this work than the hand of the mother of my children? “This link to creation means a lot to me,” he says. The hand also refers to the women associated with the building, as well as to the women who hold important positions in society.

In an interview with the New York Times, Smeets once described his controversial work as high-end kitsch. He later returned to this: “It’s excellent kitsch because it’s excellently made. But if it were really kitsch, it wouldn’t be in so many museums.”