Atelier Van Lieshout

Fiberglass
145 x 140 x 340 cm

“Panta Rhei” or “everything flows”, said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. He meant that nothing remains the same because time constantly puts everything in a new perspective. The thinkers in AVL’s Panta Rhei are force-fed through a funnel and their excrement forms the pillars they stand on. They are the embodiment of circularity: all is constantly renewed, with slight changes.

Panta Rhei (2011) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘De Verleiding’, Bosch Parade, ‘s Hertogenbosch (NL), 2022
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘The Invisible Hand’, Parc Tournay de Solvay , Brussels (BE), 2016
‘Vrijstaat’, Kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse (NL), 2014

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

Polyurea
207 x 105 x 130 cm

A monument for the dead and the living, Couple references the sarcophagus of the famous Etruscan funerary couple, Sarcophagus of the Spouses, and relates to the cycle of life represented by
the Blast Furnace: the end of everything and the beginning of everything.

Couple (2011) was part of the follwing exhibition(s):
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019
‘The Butcher’, La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille (FR), 2013

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

Fiberglass
93 x 63 x 114 cm

Hieronymus is part of a larger series of tribal sculptures, totem-like objects geared at worship, rituals, offerings. Hieronymus’ organic shapes evoke images of both man and beast, and refer to the fantastical forms and figures of Dutch painter Hiëronymusch Bosch. At the same time, in true AVL-fashion, the work has a functional quality to it, and balances on the boundary between sculpture piece and functional object.

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

Fiberglass
70 x 60 x 201 cm

The New Tribal Labyrinth is an ongoing series of work in which recurring themes like the organization of labour, the structures of power and revolution are linked to the end of the worlds´ resources and subsequent self sufficiency. It suggests a new world order, a society inhabited by imaginary tribes. This world will see a return to farming and industry – which currently both have been banished from our society –  and a re-establishment of our relationship with materials – which now has been lost. Rituals will be re-valued, and will play in important role in society once more. Thus, objects for farming, industry and rituals are the three main bodies of work of this huge ”Gesamtkunstwerk”.

Fiberglass
220 x 205 x 431 cm

2010-2012  The Monument, 2010-2012 Mother and Child, 2010-2012 Untitled, 2010-2012

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

Fiberglass
190 x 125 x 120 cm

For the 2009 series of furniture, Joep van Lieshout choose the human figure as starting point. Sculptures have been transformed by adding just a few items that changed them into furniture pieces. On one side furniture has been made out of human sculptures (the bodysofa) on the other side prints of people are used for several pieces (fossils, liquor man). The results were not designed but the process dictated the outcome of this furniture. Body Sofa, 2009 Fat Bastard, 2009 Liquor Master, 2009

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

Mixed media
300 x 270 x 120 cm

The New Tribal Labyrinth is an ongoing series of work in which recurring themes like the organization of labour, the structures of power and revolution are linked to the end of the worlds´ resources and subsequent self-sufficiency. It suggests a new world order, a society inhabited by imaginary tribes. This world will see a return to farming and industry – which currently both have been banished from our society –  and a re-establishment of our relationship with materials – which has now been lost. Rituals will be re-valued, and will play an important role in society once more. Thus, objects for farming, industry and rituals are the three main bodies of work of this huge ”Gesamtkunstwerk”.

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

Mixed media
85 x 70 x 105 cm

The New Tribal Labyrinth is an ongoing series of work in which recurring themes like the organization of labour, the structures of power and revolution are linked to the end of the worlds´ resources and subsequent self sufficiency. It suggests a new world order, a society inhabited by imaginary tribes. This world will see a return to farming and industry – which currently both have been banished from our society – and a re-establishment of our relationship with materials – which now has been lost. Rituals will be re-valued, and will play in important role in society once more. Thus, objects for farming, industry and rituals are the three main bodies of work of this huge ”Gesamtkunstwerk”.

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

Polyurethane Foam
300 x 140 x 130 cm

This smaller black canon is the second one made in a series of tree, a more stylized canon as a production of the post industrial era.

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

Bronze
192 x 122,5 x 100 cm

Piëta is a reference to one of the three most common artistic representations of a sorrowful Virgin Mary. A modern-day youthful presentation of sorrow.

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

Fiberglass
1000 x 800 x 600 cm

For the new School of Architecture in Nantes Atelier Van Lieshout has made l’Absence. As a sculpture, l’Absence fits into the architectural constraints of the site. The result is a moving and living mass, with multiple protuberances, incarnation of an instinctive gesture, without any delimitation or any function. A living space where we wish discussions will happen. L’Absence is in turn a bar, a sculpture, a comment on today’s architecture that will, without a doubt, fuel students’ imagination.

Location: School of Architecture, Nantes (FR)

Fiberglass
1200 x 2100 x 67 cm

Designed for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Funky Bones is a group of 20 benches with drawings of large bones that will together form the shape of an enormous, stylized human skeleton.The work grows out of ideas about native heritage and cultural development, with bones iconically referring to artifacts and remains from previous occupants. Joep encountered visitors sitting on rocks and other natural perches on his visit to Indianapolis and therefore wanted to create benches as sites for resting in 100 Acres Art and Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Location: Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis (USA)

Polyurethane Foam
165 x 50 x 80 cm

The New Tribal Labyrinth is an ongoing series of work in which recurring themes like the organization of labour, the structures of power and revolution are linked to the end of the worlds´ resources and subsequent self sufficiency. It suggests a new world order, a society inhabited by imaginary tribes. This world will see a return to farming and industry – which currently both have been banished from our society – and a re-establishment of our relationship with materials – which now has been lost. Rituals will be re-valued, and will play in important role in society once more. Thus, objects for farming, industry and rituals are the three main bodies of work of this huge ”Gesamtkunstwerk”.

New Born Helmet (2010) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019

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

PolyUrea
100 x 75 x 158 cm

Inspired by the pre-historical venus sculpture, this ancient goddess and mother figure refers to idolatry, fertility and primitive society in which women played a considerably more important if not dominant role.

Venus (2010) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘De Kannibaal’, Villa Zebra, Rotterdam (NL), 2011 – 2012

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

Mixed media
140 x 90 x 135 cm

This sculpture is the depiction of the symbol for masculinity. The roughly shaped male figure is in possession of an  extraordinary phallus.

Mixed media
120 x 70 x 150 cm

The New Tribal Labyrinth is an ongoing series of work in which recurring themes like the organization of labour, the structures of power and revolution are linked to the end of the worlds´ resources and subsequent self sufficiency. It suggests a new world order, a society inhabited by imaginary tribes. This world will see a return to farming and industry – which currently both have been banished from our society – and a re-establishment of our relationship with materials – which now has been lost. Rituals will be re-valued, and will play in important role in society once more. Thus, objects for farming, industry and rituals are the three main bodies of work of this huge ”Gesamtkunstwerk”.

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

Fiberglass
1300 x 1000 x 275 cm

For the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen Atelier Van Lieshout made Huize Organus. This multi-functional unit is placed on a small dyke in the museumpark. The unit consists of several elements of which the large part houses the complete digestive system from tongue to rectum. The largest part of this ‘microworld’ is blown up to massive proportion so that people can enter. Grown out of this sculpture is the clip-on compost toilet. On the other side the female reproductive organs are attached. In this Wombhouse you will find a small bedroom, where one can sleep in the most save place one can imagine on earth, the womb.

Mixed Media
Various dimensions

Joep van Lieshout’s fascination with systems and organs is apparent in his installation Cradle to Cradle (2009). This artwork takes its name from the popular Cradle to Cradle manifesto by the American architect William McDonough and the German chemist Michael Braungart. Cradle to Cradle is based on the concept that waste is food. This means that old materials are used to form new products without loss of quality or waste products. This principle is taken to the extreme in AVL’s installation. Cradle to Cradle consists of an anatomical theatre, a semi-industrial slaughterhouse and a high-tech operating room. Bones, skulls, muscle groups and organs lie on robust, brightly lit tables. Various flayed bodies hang from rails. This machine recycles people. In a model of efficiency, the organs are used for transplants, while the flesh, fluids, fat and bones are processed into meat. The remainder is used to harvest energy.

Cradle to Cradle includes part of the interior of another art work – SlaveCity – which Joep van Lieshout has been designing since 2005 and which is intended to house 200,000 residents. The infrastructure of SlaveCity has been fully worked out on paper and in models and objects, and includes universities, brothels, a hospital, an airport, a shopping centre, a call centre and a museum. SlaveCity’s potential residents are selected upon entry. AVL describes the selection process as follows: ‘Old, crippled, sick and bad tasting people will be recycled in a biogas digester, while the healthy, not so clever will be recycled in the meat processing factory. The young and healthy will take part in the organ transplant program.’ Only six per cent of all participants are suited to working in the call centre.  The selected healthy slaves follow a strict schedule. They work seven hours per day in the service industry or on the land and seven hours in the call centre. They must spend the remaining ten hours on personal maintenance, relaxation and sleep. If all the slaves keep to this regime, SlaveCity is able to provide all its own food, water and energy. ‘The city’s only source of energy is that which it produces itself covered by the use of biogas, solar and wind energy, working to build a ‘cradle to cradle’ situation in which everything works as a closed circuit recycling system, where there is no waste.’ Moreover, the organisational structure of SlaveCity is highly profitable. The revenue is invested in medical assistance, organic food and green energy.
With macabre sculptures and installations such as Cradle to Cradle, AVL offers an extremely provocative answer to the world’s problems of overpopulation and depleted energy supplies. In addition, the art works hold up a mirror to society, magnifying contemporary trends in the fields of ecological (product) design and the economy. ‘[…] Cradle to Cradle is presented as a perversion of a highly modern achievement-oriented society, bringing forward the discussion of the broken limit between good and evil.’ The art work shows ‘the logical outcome – the shadowy other – of a ruling democratic system entangled in its own guiding principles of economic rationalisation and expanding biological control’, according to the theorist Helen Petrovsky in a catalogue from 2009.

Cradle to Cradle (2009) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘SlaveCity’, De Pont, Tilburg (NL), 2016
‘Vrijstaat’, Kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse (NL), 2014
‘De Kannibaal’, Villa Zebra, Rotterdam (NL), 2011 – 2012
‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL), 2010

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

18K Gold
4,5 x 4,5 x 1,2 cm

Five Pointed Golden Knuckle Ring can be worn as a ring, but also can be used, if the situation demands, as a weapon.

For enquiries, please contact Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery

These cufflinks are representing a family connected to each other, happily strolling and dancing. Evoking the idea of the perfect family.

For enquiries, please contact Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery

These cufflinks are representing a family connected to each other, happily strolling and dancing. Evoking the idea of the perfect family.

For enquiries, please contact Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery

A pair of earrings representing five hanging men connected to each other, have a dual function – to be worn and to be admired while standing.

For enquiries, please contact Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery

Fiberglass
450 x 450 x 850 cm

This sculpture commissioned by Sculpture International Rotterdam depicts eighteen stacked oil drums, which appear to descend from the sky like a waterfall. Combined with a syrupy mass, shapes of a score of human figures. Anonymous beings in dramatic poses climb up the robust contours of oil drums with their limp and formless figures. Melted together as a single whole to form a monumental column. The sculpture evokes associations with the current economic crisis, the exhaustion of raw materials and the bankruptcy of the consumer society.

Location: Churchillplein, Rotterdam (NL)

Fiberglass
128 x 70 x 94 cm

Fiberglass
1300 x 1000 x 260 cm

Nature is all about the ‘survival of the fittest’, as Charles Darwin concluded in the 19th century. A century later fascist regimes applied his theory of evolution to society and invented social Darwinism. Only the most beautiful and smartest people would be allowed to breed in order to create a race of supermen — a perverse exaggeration of nature. AVL’s Darwin is a superior sperm cell squashing the bodies of the losers. It’s also a cocoon for living and reproducing in.

Darwin (2008) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘VOORLOPERS’, Park, Paleis Soestdijk (NL), 2022
‘Imagine’, ArtZuid, Amsterdam (NL), 2021
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL), 2010

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

Fiberglass

The two bus stops Alpha & Omega (2009) in the shape of an egg and a skull are commissioned by Gemeente Dordrecht and placed at the beginning and end of the scholars bus route if not only symbolizing the beginning and end of life but also the process of learning and the scholars’ career.

Commission
Location: Dordrecht, The Netherlands

Mixed media
330 x 220 x 120 cm

For the 2009 series of furniture, Joep van Lieshout choose the human figure as starting point. Sculptures have been transformed by adding just a few items that changed them into furniture pieces. On one side furniture has been made out of human sculptures (the bodysofa) on the other side prints of people are used for several pieces (fossils, liquor man). The results were not designed but the process dictated the outcome of this furniture.

Body Sofa, 2009

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

Bronze
30 x 30 x 43 cm

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

Mixed media
Diverse measurements

The fossil series consists of several chairs, chaise longues and sofas. The fossils are reminiscent or recall a primitive shape, half natural, half manmade. They have an outline that vaguely looks like a remnant of a human shape or a body. Like a fossil, these nomadic pieces reveal the identity of the pre-historic host but also resemble and may be seen as rocks or volcanic stone. The fossils are provocative and thoughtful sculptures, which function as sitting places or pieces of furniture, inspiring visitors to nestle and offer an interesting place to gather, read, have a pick-nick, and dream away with the movement of the clouds or the sounds of the city.

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

Fiberglass
200 x 200 x 175 cm

The Grinder is an installation from ‘Cradle to Cradle’ (2009), a series of works which is based on the concept that waste is food. This principle is taken to the extreme in AVL’s installation, a machine built to recycle people. In a model of efficiency, the organs are used for transplants, while the flesh, fluids, fat and bones are processed into meat in this grinder. The remainder is used to harvest energy. Atelier van Lieshout offers an extremely provocative answer to the world’s problems of overpopulation and depleted energy supplies

Grinder (2009) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Roof Installation’, ROOF-A, Rotterdam (NL), 2021
‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL), 2010

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

Polyurea
211 x 190 x 258 cm

Joep van Lieshout’s fascination with systems and organs is apparent in his most recent installation, Cradle to Cradle (2009). This art work takes its name from the popular Cradle to Cradle manifesto by the American architect William McDonough and the German chemist Michael Braungart. Cradle to Cradle is based on the concept that waste is food. This means that old materials are used to form new products without loss of quality or waste products. This principle is taken to the extreme in AVL’s installation.

Cradle to Cradle consists of an anatomical theatre, a semi-industrial slaughterhouse and a high-tech operating room. Bones, skulls, muscle groups and organs lie on robust, brightly lit tables. Various flayed bodies hang from rails. This machine recycles people. In a model of efficiency, the organs are used for transplants, while the flesh, fluids, fat and bones are processed into meat. The remainder is used to harvest energy.

Exploded View (2009) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘SlaveCity’, De Pont, Tilburg (NL), 2016
‘De Kannibaal’, Villa Zebra, Rotterdam (NL), 2011 – 2012
‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL), 2010

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

“Perhaps the artist would be interested to know that the shapes illicit images of the lynching history in the United States. For those of us of African descent, such images evoke a plethora of emotional responses. Although I am unable to physically live with the piece, it has already moved me as only artistic expression can. For this, I truly thank the artist!”

— Dr. Noreen Winningham, early childhood educator

Quote by Joep van Lieshout: “It can be seen as people hanging from or alternately growing from the tree – as punishment but also blossoming.”

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Nylon resin
41 x 32 x 12 cm

PappaMamma Lamp is a translation of the human reproductive process. It is an anatomical cross-section of the genital organs: the penis, the vagina, and the gestating fœtus. Light of life.

Enquiries via Carpenters Workshop Gallery

Fiberglass
93 x 48 x 87 cm

Fertility Lamp is an example of AVL’s fascination with the human body. Imbued with the same sense of humour as many of their previous works, the oversized organ conjures up images of tribal fertility gods and male insecurities of size and performance. The proportions and the pose are exaggerated, abstracting the form to a comical level.

Polyurea
126 x 126 x 200 cm

This sculpture celebrates bounty. The woman, who could be either an abstract Mary or a new fertility goddess, carries a platter bearing three children. It looks like an embrace, but the young ones could also be meant for sacrifice or cannibalistic consumption.

Horn of Plenty (2008) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘SlaveCity’, De Pont, Tilburg (NL), 2016
‘The Butcher’, La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille (FR), 2013

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

Fiberglass

Life is about making choices, between the known and the unknown, security and uncertainty, progress and the status quo. All that, wrapped up in this kiss, which can be seen as a confirmation of love, but also a bittersweet farewell.

Der Kuss (2008) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020
‘Infernopolis’, Submarinewharf, Rotterdam (NL), 2010