'Disco Inferno', BRUTUS, Rotterdam (NL)
News
Disco Inferno is an industrial monster of grinding, pulverizing, producing machines, linked together by a spaghetti of tubes, hoses, cables, tanks and pumps. Every detail here has been carefully thought out and sculpted by Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL). Each welding seam, nut or bolt is a conscious choice. These machines run on almost anything – cooking oil, lard, or homemade pyrolysis oil.
The only useful purpose of this complex installation is that it keeps itself in motion, while the excess heat of giant diesel engines that power all the machines and generators is recycled to supply heat for the project’s ultimate destination ‘the happy end of everything spa’.
In an investigation that moves between fascination, aversion and an urge for more, Van Lieshout tests the limits of power, material and greed. “ As long as we have oil or waste plastic, we can keep dancing on the edge of the volcano” This installation is an open-ended work. It is not a static snapshot of a moment, it will transform with time.
On view at BRUTUS
Thursday – Sunday: 12:00 – 18:00h
Agenda
Current exhibition(s):
Blast Furnace, ART OMI, Ghent NY (USA)
25 May 2019 – Summer 2024
Roof Installation, ROOF-A, Rotterdam (NL)
04 November 2021 – 01 May 2024
50 jaar Ruigoord, Ruigoord, Amsterdam (NL)
21 July 2023 – Summer 2026
Successor, Beeldengallerij Haarlem, Haarlem (NL)
1 October 2023 – September 2025
Feel the Heartbeat, Museum Sint-Janshospitaal, Brugge (BE)
16 December 2023 – 1 June 2024
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De Opvolger, Lely, Maassluis (NL)
News
Farming followed hunting and gathering. What started with the cultivation of small parcels of land ended with the rise of large, professional companies that have found a balance between seasons and systems. Once run by parent, child and helper- today’s farm is high-tech and increasingly run as a business rather than a `family affair’. The helper is still there, but the child more often follows a path that is removed from farm life. Instead, robots now play a central role in farming and Lely is the forerunner in helping to bridge this transition.
Atelier van Lieshout’s De Opvolger (The Successor) pays tribute to the farming family of yesterday, today and tomorrow. This bronze sculpture seems to grow out of the earth and has a robust posture. The figures in this ensemble represent today’s farming family, they are ready to solve any opposition or problem and support their livestock by any means or invention imaginable. The concrete plinth refers to a mound, the oldest architectural tool to secure the early Dutch farmland from the sea.
De Opvolger is permanently placed in front of the new Lely Campus, realized by architect Machiel Hopman of Converse Architects – a destination for innovation and farming of the future. This work is about an evolving craft within the profession, while offering cows the right to choose and live “freely”.
“With this new technology cows get a spa treatment and milk on their own body clock, this is the most humane use of technology, maximum animal rights for all the cows we love . “Joep van Lieshout
Photo made by Nico Alsemgeest
‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL)
29 May 2010 – 26th September 2010
The exhibition Infernopolis by Atelier Van Lieshout in the port of Rotterdam was a big hit. No fewer than 20.315 visitors found their way to the port of Rotterdam. Atelier Van Lieshout inaugurated the Submarine Wharf with the spectacular exhibition Infernopolis. In the 5000m2 space Atelier Van Lieshout created a terrifying setting in which medical instruments, vacuum pumps, silos, skulls, skeletons, and giant sperm cells and bodily organs are the main protagonists. Two enormous installations, ‘The Technocrat’ and ‘Cradle to Cradle’, were installed amid a forest of existing and new sculptures.
At ‘Infernopolis’ you could move among sinister installations and tableaux in which the distinctions between good and evil, life and death, and reality and fiction are erased. Atelier Van Lieshout’s fascination with systems is clearly manifest in the art work The Technocrat (2003-2004), which comprises all manner of apparatus, containers, beds and distillation vats. Together they formed a closed circuit of food, alcohol, excrement and energy. Cradle to Cradle (2009) takes the principle that human waste can be food to the extreme. Looking at this art work, it quickly becomes clear that this machine recycles everything, even people.
Endless circulation
At ‘Infernopolis’ you could move among sinister installations and tableaux in which the distinctions between good and evil, life and death, and reality and fiction are erased. Atelier Van Lieshout’s fascination with systems is clearly manifest in the art work The Technocrat (2003-2004), which comprises all manner of apparatus, containers, beds and distillation vats. Together they form a closed circuit of food, alcohol, excrement and energy. Cradle to Cradle (2009) takes the principle that human waste can be food to the extreme. Looking at this art work, it quickly becomes clear that this machine recycles everything, even people.
Vision of the future
The exhibition in the Submarine Wharf contained Atelier Van Lieshout’s most recent sculptures, which have never previously been exhibited. These works illustrated the evolution of a new culture resulting from a society of over-consumption and scarce resources. In this culture we saw a harshening of relations between people and an increased will to survive. Through battle scenes and a large, abstracted cannon (WW III, 2010) Atelier Van Lieshout provided a glimpse of a possible future. The sculpture Cascade by Atelier Van Lieshout, placed at Churchillplein in Rotterdam illustrated this theme as well.
Atelier Van Lieshout artworks on display: Bikinibar (2006), Darwin (2008), BarRectum (2005), Penis Small, Medium, XL (2003), Exploded View (2009), Tree (2008), WW III (2010), Cow’s Head (2010), Woman on Bed (2006), Fertility (2008) and many others
‘Das Haus’, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (DE)
12 September 2008 – 11 January 2009
From 12 September 2008 until 11 January 2009 The Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst in Aachen will host a large retrospective of the work of Atelier van Lieshout (AVL). ‘Das Haus’ will show works ranging from the early 80’s until today in several thematic spaces, and artworks from different periods will be brought together in new relationships.
The organisation of a large-scale showcase of Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL) is not unlike the creation of a parallel universe. This is partly because of the huge effort involved, which goes far beyond what an exhibition usually requires: an Armada of low-loaders, cranes and fork-lift trucks was deployed to move the work in containers, crates and boxes from production point in Rotterdam harbour to presentation point in the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst in Aachen. It was like an invasion, the way the emptied former umbrella factory filled up from day to day with the voluminous new arrivals and underwent a gradual and compelling spatial redefinition through their sculptural presence. But above all – and this is the other reason for installing this parallel universe – a retrospective of 25 years of artistic development opens up the possibility of viewing themes and leitmotifs within the context of their intended interconnection, and of acquiring a sense of the “saga” of Joep van Lieshout.
‘The Disciplinator’, MAK Museum, Vienna (AT)
22.06.2005 – 02.10.2005
Two large AVL projects – “The Disciplinator” and “The Technocrat” – are presented in the MAK. “The Disciplinator”, a gigantic cage-like construction for 72 inmates, transforms the MAK Exhibition Hall into a modernlabor camp, designed to achieve maximum profits through rationalism. The 24 sleeping units are intended for use in three shifts, an example of bizarre perfection calculated to eliminate any type of friction. Especially because the AVL refrains from making any kind of moral statement, the “Disciplinator” communicates an unadulterated vision of the horrors of the principle of exploitation. The installation “The Technocrat” – a closed cycle consisting of food, alcohol, excrement and energy – is also meant to engender provocation through extreme rationalism. In this system, the human (“burgher”) functions as a biological cogwheel that drives an entire machine park, generating raw material for the production of biogas that in turn is used to cook food and produce alcohol (since the 1,000 burghers needed for the smooth running of the Technocrat must be kept happy and subdued). “The Technocrat” offers an ironic commentary on the situation of modern humans in a highly technological society that only gives the appearance of guaranteeing endless possibilities and total freedom.
With the generous support of the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam.
MAK Museum, Vienna, Austria
Atelier Van Lieshout artworks on display: Alcoholator (2004), Disciplinator (2003) and others.
‘Happy Office’, VIVID Gallery, Rotterdam (NL)
29 January 2006 – 19 March 2006
From January till March 2006 gallery VIVID in Rotterdam presented the exhibition Happy Office, showing the entire office line by Joep Van Lieshout.
“The special thing about my collaboration with Hans is that it goes so incredibly quickly. Just a really direct, decisive approach.”– Joep van Lieshout
‘Happy Forest’, Kröller Müller Museum, Otterlo (NL)
In the summer of 2005 the sculpture garden of Kröller Müller Museum is transformed into the Happy Forest, an exhibition by Atelier Van Lieshout.
A large section of the sculpture garden, including the events’ terrain and the adjacent sculpture forest, is adorned with ‘organ sculptures’ and mobile homes of brightly coloured polyester – a trademark of AVL – that bear titles such as Workshop for Weapons and Bombs, Wombhouse, Skull and Septic tanks. All the works are allowed to be touched and often even entered. Wombhouse, for example, is equipped with a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and a minibar.
‘The autarkic nature of AVL’s work’ is particularly emphasized in the exhibition. Although works of art, the mobile units all have a functional use that is aimed at an independent and self-sufficient existence. For example, the sculptures represent alternative possibilities for generating energy, processing waste and there is a farm with chickens, rabbits and sheep.
‘The Technocrat’, Sprengel Museum, Hannover (DE)
7 November 2004 – 23 January 2005
The Sprengel Museum Hannover has made it possible for Atelier van Lieshout (AVL) to realise ‘The Technocrat’, a new installation which encompasses several rooms. This is to honour the artists work as winners of the 2004 Kurt Schwitters Prize for Visual Arts. The project consists of 10 sculptural elements that they have shown in the past, together with 14 sculptural elements realised expressly for the occasion. Works on paper and sketches will complete the Sprengel Museum Hannover’s exhibition.
‘The Technocrat’ deals with elementary biological processes from everyday activities, such as providing oneself with nutrition, digestion, disposal and recycling. Van Lieshout gives these physiological needs a radical twist by reducing human existence to becoming a digestion machine. Human life is then limited to creating methane and a role in the nutritional chain of creation and death. Van Lieshout thus examine, in an ironic and humorous manner, Modern Man in a high-tech environment that apparently guarantees limitless possibilities and freedom.