Atelier Van Lieshout

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.

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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.

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

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“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

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“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

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

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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.

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“This is the most essential way of drawing a figure related to the first human expressions.” Joep Van Lieshout

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In his new body of work CryptoFuturism 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. Starting his research by building huge machines in order to destroy or recycle all possible materials, Joep van Lieshout deconstructs notions of sustainability with techno modernist speed, playing a dangerous game with nostalgia for bygone political theorems.

In his new body of work CryptoFuturism 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. Starting his research by building huge machines in order to destroy or recycle all possible materials, Joep van Lieshout deconstructs notions of sustainability with techno modernist speed, playing a dangerous game with nostalgia for bygone political theorems.

As part of the CryptoFuturism project, these helmets refer to new technologies and the way humans will interact with these currently unpredictable developments.

In his new body of work CryptoFuturism 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. Starting his research by building huge machines in order to destroy or recycle all possible materials, Joep van Lieshout deconstructs notions of sustainability with techno modernist speed, playing a dangerous game with nostalgia for bygone political theorems.

As part of the CryptoFuturism project, these helmets refer to new technologies and the way humans will interact with these currently unpredictable developments.

For the near future, Atelier Van Lieshout foresees the emergence of a new tribal world, a primitive society where production takes centre stage. 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. In this new world, ethics will be of little importance. Instead, rituals will be re-valued, and will offer the tribes of the future guidance.

Atelier Van Lieshout is taking an advance on this future, and is creating all necessary equipment for the imaginary tribes, ranging from items of worship and sacrifice to objects for daily use, dwellings and machines. All these artworks together make the huge Gesamtkunstwerk that is New Tribal Labyrinth.

Zig Zag is Van Lieshout’s take on one of the most iconic designs of the 20th century. However, it is executed in a primitive, almost crude way, in plywood, with a rough finish. Zig Zag is linked to a series of chairs by Atelier Van Lieshout, the Prototypes, in which Joep van Lieshout wanted to address the value of crude assembly. For this series, Van Lieshout produced a number of chairs, by hand, directly from the heart, from the head – without making use of a design, a try square or a measurement tape. This approach stands in stark contrast with that of the Rietveld chair. Any similarity is therefore a coincidence.

The Les Brutalist series (2015) is a body of cubist, functional sculptures in a style that Joep van Lieshout refers to as “nouveau brutalism”. With its abstract, geometrical shapes, Les Brutalist hold a clear reference to the utopian modernist movements of the early 20th century. At the same time, however, the installation addresses mans’ most primeval needs. The installation is part of a series by Atelier Van Lieshout, entitled New Tribal Labyrinth, which presents a vision of a future, yet primitive, world inhabited by imaginary tribes where there will be different ethics. This world will see a return to farming and industry, to rituals and rites.

Part of Les Brutalist series (2015): Henri, Kissing Chair, Lounge Area, Chaise Longue, Party Island and Carl.

Les Brutalist series (2015) was part of the following exhibition(s):
– Party Island: ‘Recover/Uncover’, Masa Galeria, Mexico City (MX)
– Various: ‘Primitive Modern’, Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels (BE)

Bambino lamp. Man-woman, (wo)man child, child-child: tender family relations captured in a functional object.

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”.

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.

Embrace is an organically shaped sculpture, that doubles as a lamp. The work shows three figures embracing, enveloping, merging and becoming one form.  A tribal totem for worship that is also an element of van Lieshout’s New Tribal Labyrinth series.

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Humanoid (2014) invites people to see the human soul in natural and manmade objects. This sculpture is the seed of thought for the larger public installation Humanoids (2019), which is permanently installed in the Collins Canal Park in Miami.

In this series of Atomic lamps, Atelier Van Lieshout evokes the energy created by the atom splitting, paradoxically serving comfort while posing a threat to the planet’s safety. It recomposes the light source with a spatial geography of cylindrical volumes in folded sheet steel cut in different sections. Using this system of mobile pendulums or unwavering volumes, it renews the art of physically spreading light waves, determining the beams’ direction by calculating the segment and the height. It is the director of a spectacular light show in space using magic and the chasing-projector effect, like on stage.

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The reinvention of the industrial revolution wants to make a link with, but at the same time transcend the utopian, socialist “Arts and Crafts” movement that tried to close the gap between designer, producer and user. In analogy with this movement, which set out to re-establish the value of craftsmanship, AVL will create prototype chairs, by hand.. The chairs spring directly from the heart, from the head, without making use of a design, a try square or a measurement tape. If creating a chair takes more than a single day, its’ design is considered faulty and the prototype will be disposed of.

Greenery, 2012; Brick, 2012; Pudding, 2012; 100% Cyan, 2012; Orange, 2012; Lychee, 2012

Constructed of heavy steel plates, Jewel celebrates indus try and Brutalism, the architectural movement defined by exposed concrete and blocky, geometric forms. It is a functional sculpture, and forms part of AVL’s Nouveau Brutalism series.

“It’s about man’s most primeval needs” – Joep van Lieshout

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Friends is part of the “New Tribal Labyrinth”-series. This series of works reflects on our extremely advanced and complex society, in which over-consumption and limited raw materials play a crucial role. In the near future, this contraposition will see an emergence of various new cultures. Once supplies are exhausted society will see a harshening of relations between people and an increase of their survival instinct. The question is whether such radical changes, which are coupled with violence but which may also lead to a new improved society, are good or bad.
Where groups of people start organizing themselves in tribes instead of countries and nationalities, a new tribal world order will occur. In the meantime AVL will create objects, installations and equipment for this imaginary tribe: monuments to be worshipped, cannibalistic sacrificial equipment, daily objects and designs.

The title of this chair is a corruption of the architect Le Corbusier. Joep van Lieshout: ‘Actually, this work is a badly executed Le Corbusier. I stared with the best intentions and with a really clean and neat work in mind, but unfortunately rounded forms kept on creeping in.’

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 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

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.

“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.”

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