Rijndeer

Energy provider Essent asked art collective G.A.N.G. to design a sculpture for their headquarters at Arnhem Central Station. The train station was under construction for some years (20 years in total) and the sculpture had to be adjustable to the construction plan.

G.A.N.G. designed a mobile landmark of a deer’s silhouette as the symbolic gatekeeper of de Hoge Veluwe, a Dutch national park. From the back of the train station you can enter the largest natural reserve in the Netherlands by foot. The sculpture was inspired by the ‘Osborne bull’ advertisement billboards in Spain, and could easily be moved by the construction site cranes during the building process of the train station. G.A.N.G. promoted the plan to install more gatekeepers along the entrance roads of the national park. This plan was never realised. The local newspaper Arnhemse Courant launched a competition to name the deer and the citizens of Arnhem voted for “Rijnhert” (combining the name of the river Rhine and the Dutch word for deer).

In September 2012 the Rijnhert moved from the Central station to Brainpark IJsseloord, overlooking Arnhem on top of a former landfill. The gatekeeper got a new function as the guarding angle of the Vitesse soccer hooligans. During the soccer season the Rijnhert changes colour all the time since rival supporters come to paint over the sculpture with their club colours.