Atelier Van Lieshout

Steel
195 x 112 x 240 cm (per piece)

The Mechanical Turks 2015, an automaton that represents a symbiosis between man and machine.

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

Acrylic Resin
51 x 51 x 132 cm

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.

Foam, steel
105 x 45 x 250 cm

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.

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

Fiberglass

Milling machines are versatile tools capable of producing anything from coarse metal sheeting to delicate sprockets. For AVL it is the industrial version of divine creativity. This one’s name derives from Christian iconography that depicts Jesus as the Pantokrator, the creator of everything.

Pantokrator (2015) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020
‘Power Hammer’, GRIMM Gallery, Amsterdam (NL), 2015

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

Foam, steel
180 x 60 x 250 cm

AVL wants to start a Neo-Industrial Revolution by showing sculptures of machines and tools like the Drill. It wants to reinterpret and revalue the factories and manual labour of the Industrial Revolution, by creating sculptures, made in an improvised style with contemporary materials. AVL wants to see a return to the idealism of production, where the shape and character of the material determine the design. Sculptures of machines and tools are an ode to vanished industry. These machines not only refer to the romantic longing to industry but further to this they will be honored to emphasize the fact that they brought the Western society freedom, wealth and prosperity.

Joep van Lieshout explains: “Industry used to play a vital role, as it enabled societies based on farming to reach a higher level of development and prosperity. Nowadays, however, everything that reminds us of physical production has been banned from our society, and has subsequently been removed from our sight. Our role is only to design, no longer to produce. The only thing left in our sanitized world is consumption: retail, recreation, restaurants. AVL wants to protect Industry. Industry and production should be a part of our society, as should be manual labour, pollution and hardship. As a society we cannot just consume and use, real products should be made and grown.”

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

Bronze
32 x 50 x 64 cm

Eggs are omni present in Van Lieshout’s work as another representation of the beginning of everything, containing everything from birth, production and reproduction to the cycle of life and the fragility of new beginnings.

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

Acrylic Resin

Notwithstanding its title, Black Madonna is not black. Instead, the artwork takes its inspiration from a statue Joep van Lieshout saw in the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. Its collections hold a large number of Central African artifacts which were acquired during Leopolds’ control over the Congo and the Belgian colonial era that followed. The weekend before the museum closed down in 2013, Joep van Lieshout went there on a pilgrimage. Of all the statues on display, one in particular impressed him: a female figure with child, which at the same time carries an axe.

The image did not leave him, and led him creating Black Madonna from memory. Black Madonna shows an axe-bearing mother-with-child, on a cube-shaped pedestal, which is topped by a hexagonal volume. The female figure has a protective function – guarding both life and the community – yet her weapons can also bring death and darkness. One could interpret her as a referral to of one of the darkest periods in Congolese history, when the area was under direct control of Leopold II. This period saw great atrocities against the Congolese. The Black Madonna’s choice of weapons might refer to these atrocities. At the same time as a guardian of her people she might just as well be using her weapons in an act of otherworldly revenge against the aggressors.

Black Madonna (2014) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019
‘Primitive Modern’, Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels (BE), 2015

Location: private collection.

Aluminium
170 x 100 x 102 cm

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.

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

Fiberglass, styrofoam
231 x 110 x 162 cm

Crisis brings out man’s true nature. Under pressure someone may prove a selfless hero or a cowardly opportunist. These helpers tend to the dead and wounded after a catastrophe. Or are they the occupier’s cronies dispatching fallen resistance fighters?

Helpers (2014) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Roof Installation’, ROOF-A, Rotterdam (NL), 2021
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘SlaveCity’, Zuecca Project Space, Venice (IT), 2016
‘Vrijstaat’, Kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse (NL), 2014

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

Fiberglass
155 x 112 x 109 cm

The sculpture Drehmaschine is part of the “New Tribal Labyrinth”-series. 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 and a re-establishment of our relationship with materials – which now has been lost. AVL is creating all necessary equipment for the imaginary tribes, ranging from items of worship and sacrifice to objects for daily use, dwellings and machines.

Fiberglass
95 x 130 x 260 cm

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

Fiberglass
154 x 130 x 280 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”.

Bronze
500 x 300 x 700 cm

Equilibrist, which is placed in front of a shopping mall in Malmo, Sweden, represents a mass of human shapes clinging on to boxes, packages, consumer goods, holding on for dear live, and struggling to keep their balance in the process. It symbolises humanities urge to consume, as well as the limitations it meets whilst striving to achieve this goal. The design predates the current economic crisis, and reflects on the struggle, the precarious balance between ambitions and prosperity on the one hand and the fall which this can bring about on the other hand. This applies both to the microlevel of the individual, the macrolevel of our economic system and the metalevel of society as a whole.

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.

Steel
50 x 50 x 185 cm

Man of Steel was forged in Atelier Van Lieshout’s mobile foundry Happy Industry, from a single piece of metal, by four blacksmiths who crafted the sculpture in a two-day timespan. The same people who designed the sculpture were also responsible for its production, and supplied the bare musclepower – in contrast with contemporary industrial production methods. The sculpture, a primitive human, is placed on a cubist pedestal. A juxtaposition between one of mankind’s most ancient sacred objects and an artistic movement striving towards the future.

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

Fiberglass, steel

Cutter (2014) is part of the New Tribal Labyrinth series, for which AVL sculpted ‘monuments to machines’. AVL created these sculptures in reaction to globalization and the transfer of industrial production to low-wage countries, resulting in the dramatic decline of manufacturing know how in the West.

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

Fiberglass
100 x 70,5 x 240 cm

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.

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

Fiberglass, styrofoam
320 x 245 x 280 cm

Power Hammer is part of New Tribal Labyrinth series, for which AVL sculpted ‘monuments to machines’. AVL created these sculptures in reaction to globalization and the transfer of industrial production to low-wage countries, resulting in the dramatic decline of manufacturing know how in the West. The fleshy skin on this mechanical hammer has been opened here and there to expose its ‘guts’, as if it’s a living organism.

Power Hammer (2014) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, Ruhrtriennale, Bochum (DE), 2015
‘Power Hammer’, GRIMM Gallery, Amsterdam (NL), 2015

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

Aluminium
60 x 40 x 470 cm

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.

Musicians (2023) was part of the following exhibition(s):
Arena, Nosbaum Reding, Brussels (BE), 2023

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

Acrylic Resin
123 x 101 x 218 cm

Image courtesy of GRIMM Gallery, by P. van Rooij

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

Acrylic Resin
70 x 75 x 110 cm

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.

Fiberglass
575 x 390 x 220 cm

This vice is part of New Tribal Labyrinth series, for which AVL sculpted ‘monuments to machines’. This specific tool has been enlarged to impractical size. It confront us with the West’s now defunct manufacturing industry that has been replaced by a service economy. It’s unclear whether it is part of a post-apocalyptic survival strategy or a nostalgic reminder of authentic labour.

Vice (2014) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘Vrijstaat’, Kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse (NL), 2014

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

Acrylic Resin
85 x 85 x 170 cm

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.

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

Fiberglass
155 x 87 x 223 cm

The Food Reaktor is part of the farm of the future, designed to feed the world’s growing population. In this machine with its partly visible interior, organic materials are combined to produce new edible products.

Food Reaktor (2013) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019
‘SlaveCity’, De Pont, Tilburg (NL), 2016
‘Future Fictions’, Z33, Hasselt (BE), 2014 – 2015

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

Aluminium
160 x 115 x 210 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.

Uomo Analyticus (2013) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘SlaveCity’, De Pont, Tilburg (NL), 2016

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

Steel, wood
2350 x 600 x 420 cm

Central part of the Saw Mill/Cheese Maker is the hand-powered Saw Mill. The Cheese Maker, an extremely crude, organic, rustic, indestructible barrel made from a tree trunk and used for curdling, is an extension to the Saw Mill. Both machines are connected to a central axle, driven by a tread wheel which is to be operated by humans. The Cheese Maker is also connected to the Milking Machine, which provides the milk for the cheese, directly from the cow, creating a closed circuit. The cheese production process is rudimentary, unhygienic, smutty even, making the Cheese Maker both an addition to and a denial of the modernist ideology of the Saw Mill, which represents the utopia of building a new world, of cooperation, of efficient, clean production. Generally, the process of making cheese is also a very hygienic one, but in this case bacteria get a free rein and everything will be sticky and smelly.

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

Fiberglass
285 x 188 x 195 cm

The Burghers symbolizes the ever-present human dilemma: the choice between the known and the unknown, between security and insecurity, between tradition and progress. The monumental sculpture draws from a universal and timeless theme: what does one do in an emergency situation? The figures, huddled together like a Laocoon, represent the different emotions that people go through in a time of conflict: heroism, fear, rebellion, survival, escape, compassion, cowardice, joy, loneliness – a mass of humans, insecure, doubtful and chaotic.

The Burghers (2013) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Poly Pluto Pluri’, Galería OMR, Mexico City (MX), 2017

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

Fiberglass, styrofoam, rope
360 x 195 x 130 cm

Lebensborn literally means ‘fount of life’. It was the name of a breeding programme for Hitler’s elite troops, the SS. Young Arian women were matched with Nazi officers at special homes to create a race of supermen. More than 20,000 children were conceived this way. AVL’s Lebensbron is a set item created for the performance of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg. It constitutes a sacrificial chopping block dedicated to a new people.

Lebensborn (2013) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘Let’s Get Physical’, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam (NL), 2020 – 2021
‘Future Fictions’, Z33, Hasselt (BE), 2014 – 2015

Fiberglass
77 x 131 x 178 cm

Location: Private Collection

Steel, wood
267 cm x 104 cm x 108 cm

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.

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

Fiberglass
Various designs

The Unlimited series are sculptures of swimming sperm, representing the life force of all beings. This signifier plays a recurring role for Atelier Van Lieshout’s artistic practice. Only one sperm in 150 million achieves the fertilizing goal; the beginning of everything. Unlimited reflects Darwinian social ideas and the need for survival in all aspects of our lives, whether biological or corporate.

Unlimited (2012) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019
‘SlaveCity’, Zuecca Project Space, Venice (IT), 2016

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

Steel
550 x 370 x 578 cm

The New Tribal Labyrinth wants to reinterpret and revalue the factories and installations of the Industrial Revolution, by creating large scale sculptural/technical installations, made in an improvised style with contemporary materials: blast furnaces and foundries, refineries and chemical installations textile mills and ceramics workshops. At first sight, it is not directly clear if these are part of a post-apocalyptic survival strategy, or instead represent a new utopian way of durable production.

Naphta Cracker is production unit that shows the complex process of making plastics. At the same time it wants to tell more about the value of this specific material, as plastics are made in a complicated way and out of scarce raw materials. Made in a neo-industrial style, it is hard to define in what era the artwork dates from: post-apocalyptic, Soviet, or an earlier past?

Naphta Cracker was part of the following exhibition(s):
Oil – Beauty and Horror in the Petrol Age, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (DE), 2021 – 2022

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

Fiberglass
415 x 350 x 330 cm

This series of three monumental canons shows different techniques developed throughout the past century. Ranging from the artisanal look of the WWI canon to the stylized WWIII canon. these monumental heroic works indirectly refer to Joep’s depiction of a terryfying vision of the future with food scarcity, war and epidemics.

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

Clay, metal
40 x 30 x 37 cm

In the fictional narrative of the “New Tribe” that has settled inside the Blast Furnace, new rituals and ritual objects emerge, such as this “strong men stew” pot employed for adulthood initiation rites. The stove is filled with a stew made of snakes, monkeys, insects, humans, intestines, mush‑ rooms, plants, and unrecognizable ingredients. A person has to walk backwards, take something from the pot, and eat it. If the person fails they have to wait one more year to join adulthood.

Strong Men Stew (2012) 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

Fiberglass, steel

The free market economy is driven by individual self-interest. Supply and demand interact, making prices go up or down. An equilibrium automatically arises that benefits all. Adam Smith dubbed it ‘the invisible hand’ in 1776. In today’s and tomorrow’s economy the individual is being played in much the same way.

The Invisible Hand (2012) 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
‘Market Forces’, HERO Gallery, Amsterdam (NL), 2018
‘The Invisible Hand’, Parc Tournay de Solvay , Brussels (BE), 2016

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

Mixed media
165 x 148 x 155 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”.

Additionally, New Tribal Labyrinth provides ritual objects, totem-like sculptures and dwellings for the tribes of the future. These include large scale projects like The Original Dwelling,  as well as smaller totems, icons and images of worship, like The Farm, which was the starting point of the New Tribal Labyrinth.

The Farm (2011) was part of the following exhibition(s):
‘The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth’, Pioneer Works, New York (USA), 2019
‘SlaveCity’, De Pont, Tilburg (NL), 2016

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