interview with joep van lieshout: totems for the neo ... fileharaldsen hazem harb margaret harrison...

Interview with Joep van Lieshout: Totems for the Neo-Industrial Tribe

As a teenager Joep van Lieshout diligently saved all the money he earned from his first job as a waiter

in a diner, until he had enough to buy himself an electric drill. Next was a proper set of angle grinders,

followed by a welding machine. Van Lieshout has always been a lover of tools; the workshop is his

natural biotope, the place where he thinks with his hands and molds a world all his own. His studio at

the Keileweg, a frayed part of Rotterdam formerly known for its street prostitution, reflects how far

Van Lieshout has come since those humble beginnings of a single electric drill. It’s like a factory, filled

with the smells and sounds of heavy machinery and sweat-soaked overalls. Numerous assistants and

interns busy themselves with sculpting plastics and welding metal structures. The output is enormous,

both in size and number. Everything made here receives the label Atelier Van Lieshout or AVL,

underlining the fact that the works are the result of a collective effort.

Crawford Rosson Crow Aziz +Cucher Alexandre da Cunha

Zhang Dali Matthew DarbyshireDavis Langlois ChristopherDavison Petr Davydtchenko

Shezad Dawood Iole de FreitasNick De Pirro Georganne Deen

Dana DeGiulio Pablo Delgado JenDeNike Malaka Dewapriya

Rodney Dickson Dino Dinco JimDine Lecia Dole-Recio Song Dong

Daniel Dove Angela DufresneZhivago Duncan Derek Dunlop

Mark Dutcher Jack Early AlaEbtekar Stefan Eins Klas Eriksson

Gregory Euclide Franklin EvansCécile B. Evans Maarten Vanden

Eynde Erica Eyres Shepard FaireyHarun Farocki Tony Feher eliza

fernand Carole Feuerman JoshuaField Broken Fingaz Jess Flood-

Paddock Thijs Ebbe Fokkens EmiFontana Chantel Foretich EloiseFornieles Justin Francavilla Jill

Frank Dana Frankfort Jade FuscoFrancesca Gabbiani Gais AnnaGaltarossa Chitra Ganesh Marc

Ganzglass Theaster Gates MichaelGenovese Celia Gerard Mariam

Ghani Matt Gil Douglas GordonAgatha Gothe-Snape Alexandra

Grant Joanne Greenbaum NicholasGrider Benoit Grimbert Philippe

Gronon Bill Gross Birta

producedunder thisname. Since2008 theAVL Mundofoundationcombinesex...[more]

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Joep van Lieshout

There is only one creator, though, and his handwriting is unmistakable. Since the early 1980s van

Lieshout has steadily been building a body of work that balances between autonomous sculptures,

consumer goods, installation, and design. Huge cannons, a chicken coop, mobile homes, an operating

table—these represent only a small cross-section of the utilitarian no-frills sculptures he has produced,

for a large part in colored fiberglass. Human figures often appear, but always faceless and featureless,

like three-dimensional icons. They operate machines, copulate, or serve as fodder for a composting

installation—they are just as anonymous as the anatomical models van Lieshout executes in vivid

colors and with great precision. The friction between life and death, good and evil is always present in

van Lieshout’s work, but in an unsentimental, non-ethical way. Power and independence overrule

everything in the artist’s universe, which over the years has become a model for an autarchic society.

Gudjonsdottir Núria Güell ShilpaGupta Antonia Gurkovska

Summer Guthery Josephine HadenKhaled Hafez Emilie Halpern

Nicola Bergström Hansen IngriHaraldsen Hazem Harb Margaret

Harrison Jesse Harrod HeatherHart Iris Häussler Kate HawkinsJulie Heffernan Pablo Helguera

Emily Hermant Jeremy Hight LinHixson Desiree Holman Guo

Hongwei Scarlett Hooft GraaflandHan Hoogerbrugge Know Hope

Marc Horowitz John Houck PaulHousley Ran Huang Hudson

David Humphrey Hush INSAInvader Pooja Iranna Carlos

Irijalba Alex Israel Alfredo JaarMatthew Day Jackson Malia

Jensen Koo Jeong-A TheodoraVarnay Jones Parker Jones HayvKahraman Tillman Kaiser Jason

Kalogiros Stephen Kaltenbachsiddhartha kararwal Eemil Karila

Kathy Kelley Kristi Kent LalehKhorramian Felix Kiessling LauraHyunjhee Kim Wesley Kimler Lee

Kit KLUB7 Aukje Koks JeffKoons Tamara Kostianovsky Larry

Krone Anouk Kruithof SojungKwon David LaChapelle Deborah

Lader Nicolas Lampert FrankLaws Jason Lazarus Christine LeeDavid Leggett Matt Leines Tomas


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The reduction of humans to the level of mere raw material for production, stripped to their basic needs

and physical functions, has resulted in haunting installations such as Slave City which don’t always sit

well with critics who see parallels with World War II concentration camps.

Over the years van Lieshout’s works have grown increasingly bigger. Standing more than eleven meters

tall, Blast Furnace, which premiers during Art Rotterdam Week, is downright huge. The machine is

powered by simple mechanics and people. The exhibition of which it is the prime piece is filled with

other machines, furniture, and sculptures. These are family of the works now shown at GRIMM Gallery

in Amsterdam: oversized tools with a fleshy appearance, sexy in the way Crash-author J.G. Ballard

made prosthetic limbs a source of arousal. They are an extension of the New Tribal Labyrinth series,

with which van Lieshout aims to start a neo-industrial revolution.

Lemarquis Laura Letinsky Pei LiLouise Lincoln Greg Lindquist

Hong Ling Angela Liosilittlewhitehead Jake Longstreth

Gina Magid Sarah Maple AriMarcopoulos Renzo Martens

Servane Mary Jakob Mattner EricMay Aspen Mays Marlene

McCarty Heather McGill JeffMcLane Steve McQueen

Preemptive Media Diego MedinaDawn Mellor Saul Melman Feng

Mengbo Mathieu MercierChristopher Lawrence Mercier

Annette Messager IngoMittelstaedt Jazz-minh Moore

Matthew Morrocco JustinMortimer Sahra Motalebi Elle

Muliarchyk Yoshitomo NaraNeighborhood Public Radio DonaNelson Ruby Neri Daniel Nevers

Camilla Newhagen KristinaNewhouse Kori Newkirk Rashaad

Newsome Rachel Niffenegger RayCRO Noland Txema Novelo Niall

O'Brien John O'Connor AliceO'Malley Michele O'Marah Kevin

O'Neill ob Ruben Ochoa ToyinOdutola David Ostrowski Angel

Otero Kamau Patton MariannePaul-Boncour Princess Pea

Lorraine Peltz Leila ChristineNadir + Cary Peppermint

(ecoarttech) Anne Percoco Joshua


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Atelier Van Lieshout, Installation view of Infernopolis, 2010. Photo: studio Hans Wilschut. Courtesy of the artist and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen &Submarine Wharf

Edo Dijksterhuis: According to most sociologists we are living in a post-industrial

society, a service economy, and will evolve to ever-cleaner models. Why would you

want to go back to the factory age?

Joep van Lieshout: My work is about creating a new world, with a new organization and new rituals.

I take inspiration from my environment, which constantly changes. What you see now is that authentic

elements—manufacturing, agriculture—are disappearing from daily life. They have become invisible

for most people. Everything is commoditized and commercialized; necessities of life have been

replaced by lifestyle. Not the making of things but the product has taken center stage.

Maybe stemming from some romantic longing for standing behind a heaving machine all day, I have

started recreating a factory environment. Not the cute cottage industry type that’s become so hip lately,

but brutal, dirty, heavy industry. Of course, a utopia always has a dark side and industry is definitely

not a panacea, but I’m building it anyway. It’s a reformulation of the Arts & Crafts movement, which

meant to save craftsmanship. I want to save heavy industry.

Petker Raymond PettibonPhilosophy of Time Travel Amalia

Del Ponte Abner Preis MaxPresneill John Preus Wilfredo

Prieto Ged Quinn KChung RadioSumedh Rajendran Li Ran Joe

Ray Sameer Reddy Michael ReesLili Reynaud-Dewar Jaye Rhee

Davis Rhodes Samuel RichardotBen Rivers Ry Rocklen SteveRoden Lisa Ross Casey Ruble

Will Ryman Georgia Sagri DeanSameshima T.V. Santhosh Jacolby

Satterwhite Nadja Sayej KrisScheifele Melanie Schiff Raven

Schlossberg Allison Schulnik eLSeed Elodie Seguin Robert Seidel

Mithu Sen Marinella SenatoreRaphaele Shirley Yinka Shonibare

Timur Si-Qin Chaveli Sifre LisaSigal Xaviera Simmons Clay

Sinclair Slinkachu Michael Smoler(High Energy Constructs) Deb

Sokolow Joe Sola Edra SotoDuncan Alexander Cameron

Stewart Madeline StillwellDespina Stokou Matt Stolle KiranSubbaiah Go Sugimoto Benjamin

Swaim Ryan Taber Robert TaiteKoki Tanaka Tony Tasset Michael

Tedja Ivonne Thein UlrikeTheusner Jan Tichy Bruce TombBetty Tompkins Anthony Torres

Tam Tran Emilie Trice Nicola


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Atelier Van Lieshout, Installation view of Power Hammer, GRIMM, 2015. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam

ED: You talked about new rituals taking place in your new world. Could you expand on

that?

JvL: In a new world you have to break with the conventions and morals of the past. Taboos and ethics

have to be discarded. The sculptures I make are monuments for worshipping the machine. They also

deal with subjects like cannibalism, heroism, and the worth or worthlessness of human life.

Tyson Mierle Laderman UkelesBrian Ulrich Phoebe Unwin Guido

van der Werve Chaim van LuitWendelien van Oldenborgh Sarah

van Sonsbeeck Bestué Vives DanhVo Maria von Kohler Jessica

Voorsanger Asim Waqif RebeccaWard Rachel Lin Weaver Fari

Bradley and Chris Weaver ZhangWei Logan White Faith WildingHeidi Wood Mark Woods Saya

Woolfalk Hu Xiangqian Xing XinCui Xiuwen Mario Ybarra Jr.

Pinar Yolacan Tang Yongxiang LizYoung LIANG Yuanwei Driant

Zeneli O Zhang


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What the rituals around these monuments should be like is not for me to decide. I’m a sculptor, not a

performance artist. But these works are like props for a movie that hasn’t yet been made.

ED: In your latest series of works the human figure has almost completely

disappeared. Is your utopia entering a kind of machine-age?

JvL: Well, the machines are becoming organic, living entities, mechanical beasts. The driving force is

the human desire to become one with the machine, to close the gap between humans and their

mechanical creations. To a large extent we are already one with our machines. Look at the way we use

mobile phones and computers as if they’re extensions of ourselves. The physical melting together of

man and machine is not some futuristic fantasy. When I’m at work in the studio I feel one with my

tools. I myself am a machine—totally focused and closed to the rest of the world.


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Atelier Van Lieshout, Cradle to Cradle, 2009. Photo: JW Kaldenbach. Courtesy of the artist and Kasteel Keukenhof Art Foundation

ED: How is this view of humanity different from the one in Slave City?

JvL: In Slave City humans were seen as objects. Without moral judgment, a human being was reduced

to his earning capacity, lifespan, input and output, even his recyclability. Man became raw material,

fuel, a tool, a means of production.

The new series has a more humanist approach and is more optimistic. But then again, optimism and

pessimism are usually close neighbors. Besides a machine Blast Furnace is also a living environment.

The furniture is brutalist, a thoroughly modernist style reflecting a belief in progress through

machines. But it’s noisy, smelly, incredibly hot and dusty—not exactly an ideal place to raise kids. But

the ideology of the workers is so strong that they want to live there nonetheless.

My work is also about the balance between the rational and the irrational. Wanting to produce your

own steel is a rational desire, wanting to live in a blast furnace is not. Every one of my sculptures

carries its own negation in its core.


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Atelier Van Lieshout, Blast Furnace, 2013. Courtesy of the artist

ED: Can you tell us a bit more about the other sculptures in Happy Industry [part of the

Art Rotterdam Week exhibition]?

JvL: They are really diverse. There are the Exploded View model of human organs, which resemble the

Blast Furnace with its tanks, connections, and tubes. A big woman holding a tray with children on it

embodies the horn of plenty. She’s the symbol of fertility and is flanked by nests full of sperm cells.

There’s a papamamalamp and an Etruscan inspired sarcophagus with a man and woman resting on a

bed. The entire cycle of life and death is present.

ED: These are not all tools or have a practical function.

JvL: In the New Tribal Labyrinth art is important; it has a ritualistic role, like when art first came into

existence. It’s shamanistic.

ED: Seen in that light, can these works also been seen as a critique of the contemporary

art world?


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JvL: Yes, definitely. The art world has become an industry, pumping around such enormous amounts

of money. Art was once meant to create togetherness. It was scarce and spoke of elementary topics.

Now we have art in abundance and the urgency is gone. But I can’t be too critical in this respect. I am

part of that world myself after all.

(left) Turning Tools, 2014

(right) Installation view of Power Hammer, 2015, with Vetnippel (Grease Fitting) and Pantokrator, 2014. Photos: Gert Jan van Rooij. Courtesy of the artist andGRIMM, Amsterdam

ED: Some of your new sculptures seem to directly refer to famous predecessors.

Turning Tools reminds me of early Louise Bourgois, the Grease Fitting looks like Henry

Moore’s reclining nudes. To what extent are you inspired by work of other artists?

JvL: I’m inspired by art history. It’s reflected in my titles: The Pantokrator refers to icons depicting


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Christ the Almighty, the creator of all known things. I mostly look at old art, architecture, and design

and less at contemporary work. But more than being inspired by specific artists, I take my lead from

forms and materials I encounter. A radiator is beautiful, the bottom of a plastic water bottle is

fantastic. I like authentic objects. Fake or unnecessary things do not interest me. I want to see the

passion of the maker, the designer, the producer in it.


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Atelier Van Lieshout, Installation view of Power Hammer, GRIMM, 2015. Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij. Courtesy of the artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam

ED: Besides large-scale sculptures you have recently also been making woodcuts. How

are these related to the machine monuments?

JvL: It’s another way of highlighting humanity, emotions, and the mystery that goes with it. One

woodcut is based on an old photograph I saw at the Tropenmuseum, in an exhibition about death. It

depicted two sisters, one of them dead but lying there with her doll as if she’s sleeping. The other sister

stands behind the sofa looking at her sister holding her own doll. Often when I’m in museums I make

sketches of things I like instead of photographing them. I stick them in a folder and usually see them

again a couple of years later. When I use them it’s very intuitively—I never work with a concept or a

detailed plan. It’s the same for my sculptures: I don’t make a drawing beforehand; they grow and erupt.

Wood, of course, has its limitations. You have to work around nodes and other irregularities. I seek out

such limitations. I would like to make a large machine sculpture from wood. But then again, it would

take too long. And yes, speed is important to me: I want to produce, produce, produce. If possible I

would fill the entire universe with my work.

ED: What can we expect after New Tribal Labyrinth? Where is your evolution going

after the melting together of man and machine?

JvL: For a while I was thinking about working with robots. But unless you invest massively, it doesn’t

look good. I would rather take it one step further, towards genetically manipulated organisms

performing machine-like tasks. But this can be realized as art, as a sculpture. Things do not have to be

real in order to be powerful.


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Atelier Van Lieshout, Hagioscope, 2012. Courtesy of the artist

ED: Finally, would you call your world a utopia or an apocalyptic doom scenario?

JvL: If I’d have to choose: a utopia, I guess. But it’s more correct to just call it an alternative reality.

Only if I could realize it and live in it, then it would be a true utopia. The Goetheanum in Dornach,

designed by Rudolf Steiner, is reality. If I had the number of followers Steiner had, I would start

building right away. But Steiner had clear ideas and knew how to communicate them. I make


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sculptures, not words, and in order to generate a following you need words. Words are more powerful

than sculptures in that sense.

—Edo Dijksterhuis

ArtSlant would like to thank Joep van Lieshout for his assistance in making this interview possible.


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