Arndt

The Dutch artist Erik van Lieshout became known for his sophisticated video installations and large-scale drawings examining the so-called marginal figures of society and putting to test their stereotypes. He staged caricaturesque situations that he presented to the cultivated viewer in order to provide a grotesque confirmation of the viewer’s prejudice. This was not only a balancing act between tabooed issues such as racism, drug addiction, and criminality – with rough charcoal strokes, we were rather introduced by the artist into a naive or even ugly world of images that took up the tradition of Martin Kippenberger’s or Raymond Pettibon’s satirical approaches to art.
In his new series of drawings presented at Arndt & Partner there is a thematic shift. Together with the video work van Lieshout is showing at the 4th berlin biennial for contemporary art they form of a body of work dealing with a bicycle trip the artist has made through Brandenburg. Since the mid-1990s, Erik van Lieshout who lives and works in Rotterdam, where he was born in 1968, has taken part in numerous important exhibition projects, such as the 2003 Venice Biennial 2003 (Dutch Pavilion). The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam will present a solo show of van Lieshout from December 2, 2006 until February 4, 2007.

© Erik van Lieshout, Untitled, 2006, mixed media on paper, 150 x 230 cm / 59.06 x 90.55 inch