Herman de vries venice biennale logo
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In 2015, herman de vries (b. 1931) represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennial with a very well-received solo show. Already revered for decades by other artists and connoisseurs, the show in the Rietveld Pavilion effectively introduced his work to a much wider audience.
herman de vries, who initially belonged to the Dutch NUL movement which followed similar objectives to ZERO, changed his artistic concept at the end of the 1960s. Since then he has chosen to focus on the totality and meaningfulness of nature, which are themselves based on the contradictory principles of order and chaos. As a scientist and as an artist, herman de vries's motto is that »nature doesn't make mistakes«.
herman de vries's produced his first informal artworks in 1953. He continued to work as a scientist at the Institute for Applied Biological Research in Nature in Arnhem until 1968. Moving to a village in the Steigerwald, which he likes to refer to as his »studio«, he had effectively chosen a new, sustainable way of life and working that was literally close to nature.
Time and chance are further aspects that influence his work significantly. When herman de vries began taking an active interest in language as an artistic medium, he came across the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1965 – in
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A minor gallery visitor
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Herman de Vries: ‘My guru is a squirrel’ – Venice Biennale 2015
Herman de Vries, whose work spreads far beyond the confines of the Rietveld pavilion, explains why he looks to this creature for guidance in every day living, noting the importance of nature as mother, truth and teacher
Herman de Vries (b1931) was educated as a horticulturalist and natural scientist and his work focuses on natural processes and phenomena, directing viewers’ attention to the diversity of the world around them. He seeks to encourage people to be alive and aware, and his guru, he says, is a squirrel, because this creature “is always awake”.
De Vries has spent a long time working in Venice preparing for the Biennale and has published a book, From the Laguna of Venice – A Journal, which is essentially a travelogue of his observations and collected material. His exhibition in the Dutch Pavilion brings some of this notation – written and photographed – and some of the flora into the gallery setting, “a place for observation”. This includes a central circle of Rosa damascena buds, creating a sensory experience through their colour and scent, and large chunks of charred acacia trunk, collected from the summer solstice bonfire in the village where he now lives in Germany.
Alongside the pavilion exhibiti