If I Wrote a Poem NICK VAN WOERT
FEB 1 - MAR 15, 2019 | KEIZERSGRACHT 241, AMS | GRIMM
GRIMM is pleased to announce If I Wrote a Poem, a solo exhibition of new sculptures by Nick van Woert at our Amsterdam Keizersgracht gallery. This is the artist’s fifth solo presentation with the gallery and his first solo presentation in the Netherlands since Violence at GEM, Museum for Contemporary Art, The Hague in 2016. The title of the show, If I Wrote a Poem, refers to an earlier work called If I made a list of everything I touched in a day it would be a poem that could have never happened at any other time in history (2018). It is safe to presume that these new works are that list and that this poem is about the difficulty of trying to understand the genealogy of materials. For van Woert, the materials we use are a direct reflection of who we are. He references the ancient Roman figure the Haruspex, who determine the health of a location by inspecting the dissected entrails of animals found in that location, and the French entertainer Michel Lotito (1950-2007), or ‘Monsieur Mangetout’ which translates to Mr. Eats All, who was famous for consuming everyday objects such as bicycles, a Cesna aircraft, and a coffin, to reinforce this idea. If Monsieur Mangetout was dissected by the Haruspex, his entrails would quite literally reflect his environment. What would the Haruspex interpret from his entrails? This thought begins to suggest that the figure and the landscape are interchangeable. You are what you eat. There is a persistent, pervasive association connecting our identity to the materials we surround ourselves with. As landscapes, the works are not so much a depiction of a space, traditionally untouched and natural, but a conceptual consideration of how everyday materials, when turned on their head, can register life through a vocabulary that brings attention to the zeitgeist. Van Woert’s sculptures are part anatomical - like a dissected body, and part landscape. These intuitive, visceral sculptures are a continuation of van Woert’s interest in altered states. Nothing is what it seems – these works propose an architecture of illusion. “I’m walking around sober in an intoxicated landscape. It’s a dream sequence where landscape and self portrait melt together giving form to our psyche. It’s like being in a dream - the laws that govern all things are suspended and nothing makes sense.”
Nick van Woert | Paper Magazine
installation view | If I Wrote a Poem | GRIMM Keizersgracht | 2019
I’ll Finish This Later 2019
Mixed Media approx. 115 x 60 x 70 cm 45 x 23 x 27 in
detail | Back in Five
If I Wrote a Poem 2019
Mixed Media approx. 115 x 60 x 70 cm 45 x 23 x 27 in
In Vino Veritas 2018
Mixed Media 218.4 x 106.7 x 96.5 cm 86 x 42 x 38 in
202 BOWERY NEW YORK NY 10012
+1 (646) 484-5223 UNITED STATES
FRANS HALSSTRAAT 26 1072 BR AMSTERDAM
KEIZERSGRACHT 241 1016 EA AMSTERDAM
+31 (0) 20 675 24 65 THE NETHERLANDS
INFO@GRIMMGALLERY.COM WWW.GRIMMGALLERY.COM
installation view | If I Wrote a Poem | GRIMM Keizersgracht | 2019
Overripe and Undernourished 2019
Mixed Media approx. 115 x 60 x 70 cm 45 x 23 x 27 in
It Would Have To Include Everything I Have Ever Seen 2019
Mixed Media approx. 115 x 60 x 70 cm 45 x 23 x 27 in
SELECTED PRESS
METROPOLIS M
METROPOLIS M
BROAD STREET REVIEW
THE NEW YORK TIMES STYLE MAGAZINE
MODERN PAINTERS
Nick van Woert 1979, Reno, NV (US) Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York EDUCATION
GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2018 Objects to Identify, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA (US) Drop Out, Super Dutchess, New York, NY (US)
2007 MA Fine Arts, Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY (US)
I See You, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (US)
2002 BA of Architecture, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (US)
Nada NY, Patron Gallery, Chicago (US)
SOLO EXHIBTIONS
Pop-up GRIMM, Brussels (BE) 2017 Strange Pleasures, THAT THAT Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (US)
2019 If I Wrote a Poem, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL)
Community Board, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL)
2017 Dirt nap, Patron Gallery, Chicago, IL (US)
From DADA to TA-DA!, Fisher Parrish, New York (DE)
Organ donor, GRIMM, New York, NY (US) 2016 Violence, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (NL) It’s a Trap, Phoebe Projects, Baltimore, MD (US) 2015 Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In, Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles, CA (US) Pink Elephants on Parade, Sheppard Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, NV (US) 2014 Hunky Dory Honky Tonk, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL) Nature Calls, MAMBO Museum, Bologna (IT) Pink elephants on parade, Sheppard Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, NV (US) 2013 Nick van Woert, Focus / Sculpture Park, Frieze New York, NY (US) Labyrinth, L&M, Los Angeles, CA (US) Haruspex, Yvon Lambert, Paris (FR) No Man’s Land, OHWOW, Los Angeles, CA (US) 2012 Improvised Munition, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL) 2011 Breaking and Entering, Yvon Lambert, New York, NY (US) Anatomy, Yvon Lambert, Paris (FR) Terra Amata, FIAF, New York, NY (US) 2010 SHE-WOLF, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL)
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Moran Bondaroff, Los Angeles, CA (US) 2016 A Strategic Fiction, Berman Museum, PA (US) Fault Lines, Gerald Peters, New York, NY (US) This One’s Smaller Than This One, Postmasters, New York, NY (US) 2015 Tahoe - A Visual History, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV (US) Skelet: de armatuur van het lichaam in de hedendaagse kunst, Museum Beelden aan Zee, Scheveningen (NL) SupraEnvironmental, Katonah Museum, NY (US) Weird Science, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY (US) Heartbreak Hotel, Zuecca Project Space, Venice curated by The Vanhaerents Art Collection for the 56th Venice Biennale, Venice (IT) Historiology / Archaeography, D+T Project Gallery, Brussels (BE) Theory of Forms, Patron, Chicago, IL (US) Now Age, Garage Rotterdam, Rotterdam (NL) Small Sculpture, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, IL (US) Landscape, Nevada Museum of Art, NV (US)
2014 Hippie Priest, Honey Ramka, Brooklyn, curated by Nikita Vishnevskiy, NY (US)
2010 Christmas in July, Yvon Lambert, New York, NY (US)
Human Interface, Hus Gallery, London (UK)
Re:Furnish, Nudashank, Baltimore, MD (US)
Ritual Magic, Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (US)
Summer Show 2010, Fourteen30, Portland, OR (US)
Huidige Zaken, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam (NL)
Comedy & Tragedy, curated by David Hunt, Marvelli Gallery, New York, NY (US)
2013 Les neuf vies d’un chat, The Loft, Brussels (BE)
\(Lean), Nicole Klagsbrun, New York, NY (US)
Inner Journeys, Maison Particulière Art Center, Brussels (BE)
A Testbed of Futurity, curated by Sean Dack, Southfirst, Brooklyn, NY (US)
2012 Margulies Collection, Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, FL (US)
It ain’t fair, OHWOW, Miami, FL (US)
It Ain’t Fair 2012, Ohwow, Miami Beach, FL (US)
Marine 222-247, Marine, Santa Monica, CA (US)
Crossing Mirrors, Rosenblum Collection, Paris (FR)
GRIMM, Amsterdam at ARCO Art Fair, Madrid (SP)
Recasting the Gods, Sumarria Lunn, London (UK)
GRIMM, Amsterdam at ARTISSIMA 17, Torino (IT)
Science on the back end (curated by Matthew Day Jackson), Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY (US)
Yvon Lambert, New York at Art Basel Miami, Miami, FL (US)
Black Medicine, Room East, New York, NY (US)
2009 Funny Games, curated by Jamillah James,
Ruins In Revers, Room Easy, New York, NY (US)
Frontier Projects/Load of Fun Studios, Baltimore, MA (US)
Into The Surface, Brand New Gallery, Milan (IT)
The Natural Order, Camel Art Space, Brooklyn, NY (US)
2011 The Ephemeral, Arndt, Berlin (DE) What You(ngs) See Is What You Get, Rosenblum Collection, Paris (FR)
Summer Show 2009, Fourteen30, Portland, OR (US)
It Ain’t Fair, OHWOW, Miami, FL (US)
Where The Sun Don’t Shine, Nudashank, Baltimore, MD (US)
Play Time, Yvon Lambert, New York, NY (US) Death Valley, Cleopatra’s New York, NY (US)
Hi, Low and In Between, curated by Matthew Day Jackson, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL)
Paper work, Kravets Wehby, New York, NY (US) H x W x D, Wentrup, Berlin (DE)
2008 New Construction, Fourteen30, Portland, OR (US)
Call It A Good Marriage, Battat, Montreal (CA)
2007 Unseriously Serious, Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago, IL (US)
L’Insoutenable Légèreté de l être, Yvon Lambert, Paris (FR) The hybrid velocity, Twig Gallery, Brussels (BE)
ISC Award Show, Grounds For Sculpture, Hamilton (CA)
Je Crois Aux Miracles, 10 ans à la Collection Lambert, Hotel Caumont, Avignon (FR)
Also Known As, Fette’s Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (US)
The Shape We’re In, Zabludowicz Collection, New York, NY (US)
202 BOWERY NEW YORK NY 10012
+1 (646) 484-5223 UNITED STATES
FRANS HALSSTRAAT 26 1072 BR AMSTERDAM
2006 [20mb], MASS Gallery, Austin, TX (US) 2005 Nevada Triennial Exhibition, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV (US)
KEIZERSGRACHT 241 1016 EA AMSTERDAM
+31 (0) 20 675 24 65 THE NETHERLANDS
INFO@GRIMMGALLERY.COM WWW.GRIMMGALLERY.COM
GRIMM