Atelier Van Lieshout

Since the beginning of modern society, rats have played a role in culture and science. The animals often revoke 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 if 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.

Rat (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
Tij, Tijd, Tijdelijkheid,IJsselbiënnale, (NL)

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

Atelier Van Lieshout’s sculptures always start with the sketches Joep van Lieshout makes hundreds of every month. Over the past six years, a rhino increasingly kept cropping up. Van Lieshout saw himself in it. He also only has two modes: rest and contemplation or relentless forward motion.

The sculpture he subsequently created of a giant rhino with a labyrinthine structure drilled into it ended up in his studio due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the postponement of KadS. Van Lieshout used the lockdown to turn out dozens of sculptures at high speed, often with Christian themes. The descents from the cross and the last supper depict and comment on the values of human existence that were so constrained by the virus.

Surrounded by religious iconography Van Lieshout suddenly realised: that rhino is the place for Moses, the prophet who led the Jews to the promised land and received God’s ten commandments on Mount Sinai. He fitted the sculpture with a heavy, armoured door that locks from the inside so you can hide in the belly of the beast. Once rejuvenated, you can come storming out with your own version of the stone tablets.

However, the sculpture isn’t just for solo use. It provides room for four or five people. Metal rings on the wall suggest hedonistic rituals could take place. The sculpture’s bronze appearance reinforces the impression of it being an idol. Typical for Atelier Van Lieshout’s tendency to be ambiguous, the rhino is an armoured warrior and a sacrificial animal in one. An incubator for high ideals and a breeding ground for the most base instincts.

Mozes (2020) was part of the following exhibition(s):
Kunst aan de Schinkel, Soledad Senlle Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL)

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

This combination of a crutch, a wooden leg and training wheels is too much of a good thing. Individually these prosthetics support the physically challenged, but merged they prove to be wholly ineffective, an obstacle rather than an aid. Prosthetic is a perverse mutation of good intentions and the rationalist drive to always keep improving. It wouldn’t be out of place in a surrealist painting as a symbol of impotence. The sculpture is part of the Atelier Van Lieshout’s series Sacrifice, which presents war and destruction as a maelstrom of human essence, chaos, creativity providing the option of rebirth: new, yet perhaps not so improved.

Prosthetic (2021) was part of the following exhibition(s):
Fake Me Hard, AVL Mundo, Rotterdam (NL)

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

One of Joep van Lieshout’s earliest sculptures, conceived in 1983, is an operating table that doubles as a chopping block with drains to recycle body fluids and concealed stilettos to cut the patient’s vertebra if necessary. Life saving easily turns into torture and execution. Our faith in the agents of rational science is questioned, as is the value of human life itself. A couple of Ebola outbreaks, the HIV crisis and a Covid-19 pandemic later, and Atelier Van Lieshout’s Salvation spells out a not so different future. Doctors are crusaders, priests and shamans all rolled into one: part healer, part executioner. Nurses provide care and sexually charged consolation.

Salvation (2020) was part of the following exhibition(s):
Fake Me Hard, AVL Mundo, Rotterdam (NL)

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

The last supper has been an important artistic subject for two millennia, from the second century catacombs of Rome, via Michelangelo and Da Vinci to Nitsch and Warhol. Its symbolic meaning is universally understood: a goodbye to life and the world as we know it. In AVL’s version every apostle has its own character: lethargically hanging in a corner, sneaking away or hiding under the table. The scene is framed by a cage-like structure that ties it together like a portable shrine, but also implies restriction, either physically or mentally.

Available in Bronze and Aluminium.

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

The last supper has been an important artistic subject for two millennia, from the second century catacombs of Rome, via Michelangelo and Da Vinci to Nitsch and Warhol. Its symbolic meaning is universally understood: a goodbye to life and the world as we know it. In AVL’s version every apostle has its own character: lethargically hanging in a corner, sneaking away or hiding under the table. The scene is framed by a cage-like structure that ties it together like a portable shrine, but also implies restriction, either physically or mentally.

Last Supper (2020) was part of the following exhibition(s):
RE_NATURE, Future of Work, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL)

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

A computer-controlled hourglass turns over fast, running empty in mere seconds. Time is gone before you had a chance to blink twice. This makes this hourglass useless to attach any sense of time calculation to. Time slips through our fingers like sand and valuable minutes are lost.

With this work Atelier Van Lieshout deconstructs time, redefines our idea and understanding of time and takes away the certainty of time moving forward.

Down the Drain Clock (2018) was part of the following exhibition(s):
World Expo 2020, The Netherlands Pavilion, Dubai (UAE)

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

Seven Digit Clock questions our concept of time and subsequently destroys our trust in this established system. Nothing is certain, time is running back and forward, fast and slow or is the clock really trying to say something ..?

A program especially made for Atelier Van Lieshout controls the panels of the clock. Seconds sometimes last for years, years last for minutes and every now and then words appear instead of a series of numbers. The figures of Seven Digit Clock have deliberately been given an audible rhythm. The work rattles and clicks and but the moments of silence say just as much.

Seven Digit Clock (2018) was part of the following exhibition(s):
World Expo 2020, The Netherlands Pavilion, Dubai (UAE)

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

He was nearly injured by an erupting volcano, dragged Joaquin Phoenix from a burning car wreck, was shot in the abdomen by a crazed fan and suffered several bouts of malaria. Werner Herzog knows the world can be a dangerous place, especially for a filmmaker who seeks to transform reality so viewers can witness ‘the ecstatic truth’, as he calls it. But Herzog doesn’t tread gently. He bulldozers on.

AVL’s latest creation is fittingly named after the German director of such modern classics as Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man. This vehicle can handle any terrain and can operate under the most strenuous circumstances. It’s a steel-plated monster. Its parapet is outfitted with artillery embrasures and topped with a rotating gun turret.

Werner resembles the narco tanks used by Mexican drug cartels or the vehicles terrorist organizations such as ISIS use; made from modified trucks or SUVs equipped with armour and guns, the epitome of DIY tactical security.

Werner is not intended for urban warfare though. It’s designed to bring cinema to the cultural outback. AVL taps into cinema’s history as a propaganda tool, bringing the contemporary media war to the streets and underlining cinema’s fighting spirit. Films can be displayed on screens both inside and outside the vehicle. The mobile cinema can easily be extended with a tent-like structure to create an outdoor screening venue, not unlike a paramilitary encampment.

But Werner can also be used by guerrilla filmmakers who want to get back to basics. The vehicle is outfitted with a kitchen, bathroom, fireplace and other amenities necessary for self-sufficiency. Hitched to the back is a pyrolyser that transforms plastics into diesel to fuel the combustion engine powering the machine. As long as there’s waste, there will be the power to keep on making films.

Werner (2021) was part of the following exhibition(s):
50th Edition, IFFR, Rotterdam (NL)

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

Fiberglass

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

Mixed Media
150 cm x 75 cm x 312 cm

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

Mixed Media
30 cm x 30 cm x 170cm

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

Composite

Family is society’s bedrock. However, the traditional nuclear family of mum, dad and kids is no longer dominant. In this sculpture, family members have become abstract volumes relating to each other in size and movement. The work both questions and confirms their roles and relations.

Family (2020) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020

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

Fiberglass

The road to a perfect future is bumpy. It needs guides and guards, who point the way, stand firm for their ideals and keep enemies out. These figures are a cross between Moses and Ronin-like sentries, ready to serve and sacrifice for a goal they’ll never reap the benefits of. Judging by its rusty skin, this particular specimen has been at it for quite a while. The future is far away.

Utopia (2020) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020

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

Bronze

80 cm x 28 cm x 180 cm

Fight or flight? Who the heroes and the cowards are becomes blatantly clear in a crisis. AVL’s Dokwerker (dock worker) refers to the eponymous monument on the Jonas Daniël Meijerplein in Amsterdam that commemorates the 1941 February Strike. The first large-scale act of Dutch resistance against the German occupying forces.

De Dokwerker (2019) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020

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

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.