‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL)
Exhibition
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