ArToll X - Das ArToll Kunstlabor

ROB VOERMAN | Midnight Breeze Passing | Brother
My graphic art as well as my sculptures are defined by a dialogue, on one side the forms of old archaic appearances of the farmerslife
and on the other side forms of the modern technically developed media society. By their apparent improvised constructions,
the work reminds one of the anonymous architecture of sheds as can be seen on small farms and in gardens.
Part of the functionality is very much in contrast with the way these constructions are being build.
This often seems to reveal a certain self-destructive force, failure and even danger. Certainly also a comment on the over-organised
Dutch society in which danger, decay, disorder and uncertainty is systematically banned from day to day life. In my work I feel the
need of constantly undermining images and structures that I see around me, to transform them and place them in an other context
within my work. This is certainly fed by an increasing feeling of irritation and discontent with certain developments, such as
mentioned before.
The contrast between aspects of technique and the archaic material in my work seems also to point on the idea that the mind of
man itself has grown less than his own knowledge.
The impossibility to try and make a synthesis between these contradictions, creates often disturbing and alienating images.
Recently and in the near future, the aspect of really using my sculptures, for example as a bar, smoking-area, telephone-centre,
etcetera, is getting more and more important. By this the work will more and more compete with reality and thereby increase its
impact and power.
The help of 3-d computer-programmes, which I will be using soon will help me to design more complicated structures and place
then into existing spaces.
Recently I have started working on a series of work which will be about residential- and work-communities, hidden in a remote
nature. Mostly represented by its architecture, it will have a strange mixture of utopian, militaristic and functional/technical forms
and qualities.
Communities with a dark, sometimes questionable undertone, due to both utopian and subversive elements.
The work Midnight Breeze Passing is a first work in that direction.
Rob Voerman, September 2004
Brother, 2000
Technique: wood, nails and mattress
Dimensions: height 2 m / width 1 m / length 2,5 m
(Courtesy Upstream-Gallery, Amsterdam)
Midnight Breeze Passing, 2004
silkscreen and linoleum-print on paper
height 110 cm / width 150 cm / Edition of 4
(Courtesy Upstream-Gallery, Amsterdam)