Hans Op de Beeck
Works
Galleries
Galerie Ron Mandos
Ron Mandos
Prinsengracht 282
1016 HJ Amsterdam
Netherlands
Phone: +31 20 320 7036
E-Mail: mail@ronmandos.nl
Statement
Visual artist Hans Op de Beeck lives and works in Brussels, where he has developed his career through international exhibitions over the past twenty years. His work consists of sculptures, installations, video work, photography, animated films, drawings, paintings and writing (short stories). It is his quest for the most effective way of presenting the concrete contents of each work that determines the medium that the artist ultimately selects. The scale can vary from the size of a small watercolour to a large, three-dimensional installation of 600m2.
The artist not only uses a very wide variety of media, but also deliberately employs a diversity of aesthetic forms, ranging from an economical, minimalist visual language to overloaded, exaggerated designs, always with the aim of articulating the content of the work as precisely as possible.
Thematically, the work concentrates on our laborious and problematic relationship with time, space and each other. Op de Beeck shows the viewer non-existent, but identifiable places, moments and characters that appear to have been taken from contemporary everyday life, aiming thereby to capture in his images the tragicomic absurdity of our postmodern existence. Key themes are the disappearance of distances, the disembodiment of the individual and the abstraction of time that have resulted from globalisation and the changes to our living environment that developments in media, automation and technology have brought about.
Hans Op de Beeck sometimes calls his works "proposals"; they are irrefutably fictional, constructed and staged, leaving it up to the viewer whether to take the work seriously, as a sort of parallel reality, or immediately to put it into perspective, as no more than a visual construct. His work is nourished by a keen interest in social and cultural reflection. The artist also questions the difficult relationship between reality and representation, between what we see and what we want to believe, between what is and what we create for ourselves in order to make it easier to deal with our own insignificance and lack of identity. The visual output of that investigation often produces slumbering, insidious, melancholy and astonishing images.
Multi-disciplinary artist Hans Op de Beeck creates interworlds. Suspended between past and future, fiction and reality, his works sound out a mirage-like contemporary universe and a sensory vertigo where the familiar rubs shoulders with the strange. From installation to sculpture, from video to animated film, from short stories to painting and drawing, from photography to sound material, the media he employs seem to converge on the definition of a topos: a mental theatre that projects the viewer into a reflexive social and cultural experience, the intimate thinking of the human condition. —Eva Prouteau
Biography
born in Turnhout in 1969
lives and works in Brussels, Belgium
solo shows
2019
The Conversation, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, AT
The Cliff, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems an der Donau, AT
'sleeping children ... on the cold', Marianne Boesky Gallery East, NY, US
2018
Les Moulins, Boissy-le-Châtel, FR
Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, NL
2017
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, DE
Fondazione Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare, IT
Kunstraum Dornbirn DE
Museum Morsbroich, DE
2016
Espace 104, Paris, FR
2015
Space, Melbourne, AU
Château de Chimay, Chimay BE
2014
MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Boston MA, US
MOCA Cleveland, OH, US
Sammlung Goetz, Munich, DE
2013
Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA
the Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA
FRAC Paca, Marseille, F
2012
Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, IRL
Kunstverein Hannover, D
2010
the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, US
Kunstmuseum Thun, CH
Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, ES
2007
Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL
2006
MUHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, B
2004
He had substantial institutional solo shows at the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art of The Hague, The Hague, NL
Hans Op de Beeck
born in Turnhout in 1969lives and works in Brussels, Belgiumsolo shows2019The Conversation, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, ATThe Cliff, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems an der Donau, AT'sleeping children ... on the cold', Marianne Boesky Gallery East, NY, US2018Les Moulins, Boissy-le-Châtel, FRScheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, NL2017Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, DEFondazione Pino Pascali, Polignano a Mare, ITKunstraum Dornbirn DEMuseum Morsbroich, DE2016Espace 104, Paris, FR2015Space, Melbourne, AUChâteau de Chimay, Chimay BE2014MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Boston MA, USMOCA Cleveland, OH, USSammlung Goetz, Munich, DE2013Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USAthe Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USAFRAC Paca, Marseille, F2012Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, IRLKunstverein Hannover, D2010the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USKunstmuseum Thun, CHCentro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, ES2007Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL2006MUHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, B2004He had substantial institutional solo shows at the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art of The Hague, The Hague, NL