in Querceta, Italy. With him he discussed the area of site-specific sculpture and the overlapping area of environmental sculpture. From the early 1970s he was active in various artists' associations, advisory committees for public art in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other municipalities in the Netherlands. He was chairman of the stipend committee of the Dutch Ministry of Culture in 1982 and 1983 and chairman of the Dutch Sculptors' Association from 1984 to 1986. He organized international exhibitions and symposia of sculpture such as the East West Forum (Japan and The Netherlands), North Sea|Black Sea (Bulgaria and the Netherlands). In the Drechtsteden Area he realized his plan for an international sculpture park, OPAM, which was opened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1996. In 1999 Queen Beatrix and the Bulgarian King Simeon II opened Black Sea|North Sea, a symposium and exhibition of five Bulgarian sculptors in OPAM. He received the Knight of Madara (Madara Horseman) decoration from the President of Bulgaria. In 2004 he started the organization of his second international sculpture park FOAM (Finnish Open Air Museum) in Finland to which country he moved in 2003. He now lives and works in Kangasniemi, Finland, where a collection of his sculptures is permanently exhibited on the grounds of Penttilä, an old estate in the Saimaa Lake District. He named the sculpture park POAM (Penttilä Open Air Museum). External links denArend.com - official site of the sculptor "Public Art: A World's Eye View, Integrating Art Into the Environment" ICO Publishers, Japan (2008). . 1943 births Living people Dutch sculptors Dutch male sculptors Artists from Dordrecht Willem de Kooning Academy alumni