Clive van den BergLay Your Head II, 2019
Clive van den Berg’s sculptural practice centres on the body as a charged site of memory, vulnerability, and political resistance. Through tactile materials and poetic form, his sculptures often engage the symbolic resonance of skin to explore states of exposure – rendering the body not as a sealed entity, but as porous and permeable. In works shaped by the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the erasure of queer histories, Van den Berg uses sculpture as a means to give form to what is often unspoken: loss, intimacy, and the quiet defiance of survival.
‘Lay Your Head II’ extends this inquiry into the subtle realm of rest and reflection. Carved from wood and darkened to a deep black, the sculpture takes the form of a pillow bearing the impression of a head – a ghostly trace of presence now absent. Referencing W.H. Auden and the quiet rituals of sleep, the work becomes a kind of memorial, gesturing to the liminal space between consciousness and unconsciousness, past and present. In its simplicity, ‘Lay Your Head II’ suggests the body not only as a site of vulnerability but also as a space of dreaming, remembering, and becoming.
