Atelier Van Lieshout

Commission
Location: Westerlo, Belgium

A video of Kill Room (2020) via this link

Mixed Media
131 cm x 56 cm x 145 cm

For enquiries: please contact Atelier Van Lieshout via info@ateliervanlieshout.com

Composite

130 cm x 67 cm x 140 cm

Early prehistoric sculpture was all about fertility – think, for instance, of the Venus of Willendorf with her broad thighs and ample bosom. Butler is her male counterpart who has fallen victim to his own potency. His penis rests on a crutch and serves as a side table for drinks, while he himself has been reduced to a lampshade. Some of his original vigour is still detectable in his rudimentary body shape that was sawn from polystyrene blocks with a chainsaw before being cast in composite.

Bronze, sheep felt

Reclining Figure is an elegant and intimate sculpture of a woman, a portrayal of beauty and female strength. She is a primal mother; warm and sensitive, but strong, being able to easily hold the weight of eight.

For enquiries: please contact Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Fiberglass, steel, wood

This composting machine is a true omnivore. At the top of the spiral staircase sits a compost toilet, where one can relieve oneself while enjoying the view. The lower part consists of urinals, vomit and ejaculation stations. All human waste is collected and recycled. Man feeds the machine and becomes one with it — a recurrent theme in AVL’s work.

Excrementus Megalomanus (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020
‘In the Age of Post-Drought’, Transnatural, DDW (NL), 2019
‘Into The Great Wide Open’, Vlieland (NL), 2019

Fiberglass, steel

Voluminous and yet respectful, this distinctive artwork revives the idea of Drei Grazien (Three Graces) to whom we attribute incomparable gracefulness. Appearing both figurative and abstract, the megalithic sculptures—influenced by light and shadow—offer a constantly changing presence. Based upon the ideal number 3 and set at the meeting point of three roads, the sculptures have the appearance of mythical figures ascending from the depths. Primal conceptions of coming to be and passing away come alive along with the reference to the eclogite occurrence in the nearby Hohlfelsen rock. “You might think that these three voluptuous female figures—once hidden below the Austrian soil—have finally found their way to the surface”, says Joep van Lieshout. This also puts time into perspective, interweaving the past, the present and the future world of imagination and visualizing constant change.

Commission
Location: Wies, Austria

Fiberglass, steel, bronze coating

This sculpture represents a glucose molecule (C6H12O6); it shows the source of energy for human existence. This molecule is an essential fuel for our muscles and brain, which stimulate humans to create, discover and move. Nothing would work without glucose. Our lives, our machines, our vehicles and our cities would come to a halt without this fuel. De Onmisbare (The indispensable) is a contemporary artistic interpretation of this chemical structure.

Commission
Location: Station Kampen, The Netherlands

Bronze, sheep felt

Evolving from AVL’s fossil series, wherein the artist cast the human body creating “fossils” sculpted into functional objects. The work looks as if it’s been pulled from a prehistoric cave dwelling hewn out of volcanic stone, functioning as a sitting place to nestle in sheep fur while eating a spicy bowl of wild boar ravioli.

For enquiries: please contact Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Half machine, half organism, The Chicken of the Future has no conscience, feels no pain and solely contains the mechanism of the egg production without showing the recognisable features of the animal. AVL presents a farfetched, science-fiction like solution for the world food problem.

Chicken of the Future (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Bronze

The lithe and graceful figure of a young woman, posing like a flamingo virgin — the work is a celebration of youth. The subject’s bifurcated rendering invites us to question the male gaze’s conquest, reminding us that in today’s world the defence of fragile innocence is required.

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Bronze
Limited edition of 8 + 4 AP
150cm x 70 cm x 120 cm

The work is a self-portrait of Joep van Lieshout, an artist who refuses to surrender. In a show of stamina he drags himself from one creation to the next, morphing into his gnarled walking stick, reflecting the cycle of life from love to reproduction, growth and death.

Old Man Lamp (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Dysfunctional’, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Venice (IT), 2019

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Bronze
65 cm x 30 cm x 30 cm
Edition of 8

In many languages, sausage is a pars pro toto for male, or even straight up slang for penis. In Dutch, the translation of sausage, “worst”, also means “whatever”, which is Joep van Lieshout’s comment on art versus design and art in general, even his own. It is his laconic yet defiant response towards the attempt of the press and market to label or box him as artist, designer or architect or sculptor.

For enquiries: please contact Atelier Van Lieshout via info@ateliervanlieshout.com

60 x 40 x 40 is part of the RENEGADE series. With RENEGADE Van Lieshout defines art on his own terms. He challenges the market while giving it what it wants: Van Lieshout, the artist sometimes referred to as designer, will make or take an artwork and turn it into design by just adding a lampshade. With incredible speed Atelier Van Lieshout sculpts a multitude of lamps at a time, thereby quickly accumulating an amount that can spread through the art world like a virus. By adding a lampshade, Van Lieshout presents this new group of works to the public as if it were quickly assembled DIY furniture: large quantities, functional and very accessible.

Boem Boem is part of the RENEGADE series. With RENEGADE Van Lieshout defines art on his own terms. He challenges the market while giving it what it wants: Van Lieshout, the artist sometimes referred to as designer, will make or take an artwork and turn it into design by just adding a lampshade. With incredible speed Atelier Van Lieshout sculpts a multitude of lamps at a time, thereby quickly accumulating an amount that can spread through the art world like a virus. By adding a lampshade, Van Lieshout presents this new group of works to the public as if it were quickly assembled DIY furniture: large quantities, functional and very accessible.

Aluminium
Group of 9 sculptures

The Humanoids created for the park in Miami Beach, are part of AVL’s ongoing fascination with man, machine and humanity. They appear as abstract figures, which use the park and the natural environment as their habitat, formulating a subtle statement about our relationship to nature and our origins. The sculptures will be placed throughout the park, along the canal and amidst the trees. The Humanoids invite visitors to engage, stimulate social interaction and contemplation, whether it be to use them as rendezvous spots, places to remember, sketch, write, think or talk.

A video of Humanoids (2019) via this link

Commission
Location: Collins Canal Park, Miami (USA)

Wood, steel
534 cm x 210 cm x 345 cm

Pendulum (2019) is a massive, mechanical clock powered by a swinging pendulum. The clock’s hands tick loudly, ominously counting down to the “end of everything” which then ushers in the “beginning of everything” – a perpetual cycle of destruction and creation characteristic of our constant search for utopia.

Pendulum (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘The Clock Which Will Solve Every Problem in the World’, Kunstraum Dornbirn (AT), 2020
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019

For enquiries: please contact Atelier Van Lieshout via info@ateliervanlieshout.com

Press here for a video of Pendulum (2019)

Back to the Future Clock can show the time very accurately, down to a 100th of a second. However, it can also suddenly decided to make unpredictable movements. An especially for Atelier Van Lieshout developed computer programme makes the hands of the clock dance, move back and forth undecidedly or they droop down, laboriously push themselves past the numbers. Or they rush around, hours becoming seconds, minutes becoming a blur.
The work tries to redefine the concept and our understanding of time by taking away the certainty that time passes and the clock will keep on ticking.

Back To The Future Clock (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘BIG AND PLENTY‘, AVL Mundo, Rotterdam (NL), 2019
World Expo 2020, The Netherlands Pavilion, Dubai (UAE)

For enquiries: please contact Atelier Van Lieshout via info@ateliervanlieshout.com

Press here for a moving image of Back To The Future Clock.

Steel

The Pipe-bomb Clocks are steel, working clockworks attached to pipe-bombs on a steel frame and pedestal. These improvised explosive devices suggests that time is running out, but at least we can keep count whilst it does.

Pipe Bomb Clock Medium & Double (2019) were part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Killing Time‘, Willem Twee, Den Bosch (NL), 2018
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019

Aluminium, electricity

Willem de Zwijger (2018) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Killing Time‘, Willem Twee, Den Bosch (NL), 2018

Steel, glass

Suspended Hourglass shows the passing of time and plays with the concept of time, which is perceived a constant in our lives. The work is a working hourglass – an old time-telling apparatus – but also a reference to the end of times and the temporality of human life.

This forged steel gallows with the attached hourglass are part of a series that Van Lieshout has been creating regarding this concept of time. This series of works imagines what may happen if this concept that determines our lives, our rhythm and our pace, is altered to become something we cannot quite grasp. Van Lieshout plays with mankind’s one certainty, which is that time always goes on, that the clock never stops ticking and that everything will continue to change. This series about time is part of the Cryptofuturism project.

Composite

Since the beginning of modern society, rats have played a role in culture and science. The animals often evoke a sense of fear and horror. Atelier Van Lieshout however would like to stress the positive sides of the rat. They are considered highly intelligent, are adaptive when the environment changes, agile and sensitive, and very able to take care of themselves. Considering these positive notions, one could easily see the human side of the animal. The rat could be envisioned as the animal of the future; an animal that will always be here; an animal that we should look upon as a friend instead of a foe. Just like the artist himself.

For enquiries: please contact Atelier Van Lieshout via info@ateliervanlieshout.com

The Domestikator Lamp is a forged-steel lamp, shaped to present the outline of two figures and their relation. Its head serves as the lampshade. This elegant forged-steel work explores a recent theme in Van Lieshout’s work: the power of mankind over the natural world.

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Bronze
65 cm x 33 cm x 26 cm
Limited edition of 8 + 4 AP

The work is a self-portrait of Joep van Lieshout, an artist who refuses to surrender. In a show of stamina he drags himself from one creation to the next, morphing into his gnarled walking stick, reflecting the cycle of life from love to reproduction, growth and death.

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Concrete, steel

Farmers depend on the earth and submit to it, but they also try to shape and manipulate nature. The Sower is a classic sculptural theme that AVL executed in a style that combines Russian constructivism — championing belief in engineering and Flemish primitivism, that portrays man as subjected to nature.

The Sower (2018) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020
‘ArtZuid’, Amsterdam (NL), 2019

Fiberglass

The Essential Dwelling is an imaginary tribal dwelling which takes humankind back to its origins, recalling a primitive state of being. Its appearance was dictated from the inside out, its interior spaces look like they were hewn out of stone, sculpted around the basic amenities needed for living – an ultimate example of “Form follows Function”.

Like the tribal objects, the Essential Dwelling makes a link with the modernist movement. Its organic shapes and primitive production methods, however, make it the complete opposite of Modernism. The sculpture is at the same time contemporary and idealistic, as well as primeval and archaic.

The Essential Dwelling (2015) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Primitive Modern’, Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels (BE), 2015

Location: Mallorca (ES)

The purpose-built Drop Hammer House was created specifically for the NDSM to represent destruction, recycling and production in a circular economy. “A circular economy could be very positive: no waste, reuse of products, smart recycling, no exhaustion of energy and materials. It relates back to the concept in my work Cradle to cradle in the SlaveCity Project, where even the recycling of humans was a rational thing: humans to be used and reused without ethical concern. We celebrate destruction without a clear goal, melting objects and using wreckage to make sculpture. In doing so, we lure the dark side towards an optimistic, circular economy.”

This totem forms the centrepiece of the large-scale project The End of Everything; it is the ultimate destructor, whilst at the same time the creator of new work. The work is a machine of destruction as well as a home, providing room for the Venus/destructor to become one with the process of destruction.

Drop Hammer House (2018) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Ferrotopia’, NDSM, Amsterdam (NL), 2018

Death, just like the Philosopher, is part of the four sculptures representing the future leaders of the CryptoFuturism Movement.

Composite
Group of 3 sculptures

Artist, Artist producing and Curator (2018) are a series of works presenting the creatives as beggars; the scum of today’s society. The different sculptures form a group, which confirms and ridicules the position that these ‘slaves’ of the arts sector find themselves in.

This new group of sculptures was created as part of the Cryptofuturism project; in which Joep van Lieshout revisits the Italian Futurists a century later to look at resonances between emerging Fascist tendencies today, using his art to reveal the interplay between Utopia and destruction. Van Lieshout embraces emerging technologies from genetic manipulation to robotics and big data to draw parallels between the societal threats faced in the early 20th century and the perhaps graver circumstances we face today. The question is whether these figures present the position of the artist and the curator in this new world Van Lieshout creates, or if they represent their position in society today.

Artist, Artist producing and Curator (2018) were part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Market Forces’, HERO Gallery, Amsterdam (NL), 2018

For enquiries: please contact Atelier Van Lieshout via info@ateliervanlieshout.com

Fiberglass

The Troglodyte is a functional work of art that provides a changing room, toilet and shelter for the departure point for sailing in the municipality of Neerpelt. At the same time it is also a shelter in the most original sense of the word, an imaginary cave house that takes people back to their origins. The work fits into a long tradition of underground dwellings, which have provided human housing for centuries. But the work of art also refers to the prehuman time, to the origin: to the water that seeps through the landscape, through centuries and ice ages slowly grinding the river into the landscape, the river on which man now navigates, sails, relaxes. It is also reminiscent of boulders that nature has laid down in the landscape, the Hunebeds and Megaliths of early humans.

Commission
Location: Neerpelt (BE)

Steel, wood

Big Boiler is based on a temazcal, a type of sweat lodge which originated among pre-Columbian peoples in Mesoamerica. The lodge was used curatively after battle or a ceremonial ball game. The contemporary version has been upgraded with an ice bath and a hot tub, offering a rejuvenating cycle of hot and cold, beginning and ending.

Big Boiler (2018) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020
‘Ferrotopia’, NDSM, Amsterdam (NL), 2018

The gesamtkunstwerk The End of Everything is the artist’s reflection on art, the current market climate and a comment on human consumption patterns. With this work, Joep van Lieshout would like to ‘blaze a trail through this imbalance, to destroy and renew, start again with what is good – to recycle’.

The installation consists of a group of raw, industrial artworks – Der Fliegende Holländer, The Press, The Hammer and The Shredder. These may be interpreted as machines for either construction or destruction, as a negative or positive force, as a break from tradition and a change for the future. The primary goal is to recycle, be it scrap, consumer goods, artworks, even Joep van Lieshout’s own creations.

“This kiss is our primitive needs in a cubist style. It is made from Corten steel which will rust on the surface in contrast with normal steel which will disappear over the years. You can leave this kiss outside for hundreds of years.” Joep Van Lieshout

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

“Fertility. The first sculptures ever were of fertility sculptures. This one has three legs so I guess that it has a penis. From a biological point, if you bring back what is the goal of the human as a species is to keep on living, eating, and reproduce. Theoretically you can die after you reproduce.” Joep van Lieshout

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

A portrait of an early morning with family, this is a sculpture about love.

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Deer Lamp refers to the origin of human beings, humankind’s earliest art works found in cave paintings which celebrated hunting, surviving, eating, and atavistic worship of nature. Inspired by pictures of animals that survived the millennia, this belongs to The New Tribal Labyrinth, a body of work about returning back to the future and finding new rituals and solutions for the future while honouring our humble beginnings.

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery