Marijke van Warmerdam

The Dutch artist Marijke van Warmerdam, who was born in 1959, is present a representative cross-section of her work from 1992 onwards in her first one-woman show in Austria in the Gallery of the Vienna Secession.

Motifs from every-day life characterise the works of Marijke van Warmerdam. However, the artist does not remove humdrum objects or scenes from their normal context and to give them a new identity in the world of art: on the contrary, they remain what they are. Nevertheless, the works of Marijke van Warmerdam do not correspond to the usual routine expectations of the viewer. Individual objects and actions are fragmented and constantly repeated and are employed by Marijke van Warmerdam as a stylist device to impart an individual rhythm and timelessness that contrasts with every-day life. For instance, her films, which were highly praised at the 1995 Biennale in Venice, show people who are imprisoned in constant repetitions of fragmentary routine situations. Due to the absence of a coherent story line, they are forced to act in the vacuum of their individual environments. These begin to speak for themselves in a mixture of the familiar and unknown that hovers between reality and fiction.

Although they are both independent and individual, the works Marijke van Warmerdam presents here reveal a tightly-interwoven frame of reference, in which art and every-day life, facts and fictions, are brought together and thoughts, memories and emotions are unexpectedly evoked and brought to the consciousness with the help of forgotten images. Alongside her first film ”King/Circle”, which was shot in 1992, Marijke van Warmerdam is also presenting ”Untitled” (Pop/Doll), which was created in 1994 and represents a slowly revolving female figure, together with the video works ”Fiets/Bike” (1994) and ”Voetball/Football” (1995) in the Vienna Secession.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a poster that was designed by the artist and which will contain a text in German and English by Susanne Neuburger.

Marijke van Warmerdam was born in 1959 in Nieuwer Amstel, Holland, and lives and works in Amsterdam and New York. One-woman shows and group exhibitions since 1991 include: ”Prix de Rome”, Museum Fodor, Amsterdam (1992); ”Dematerialism”, The Interart Center, New York (1992); ”Watt”, Witte de With, Rotterdam (1994); ”Cinema Actuel”. Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam (1994); ”La fille aux crêpes”, Galerie van Gelder, Amsterdam (1995); Biennale, Venice (1995); Jack Tilton Gallery, New York (1995/96).

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Marijke van Warmerdam