Taste
Art with impact: seven works that change your view of the world
Art no longer needs to hang neatly on the wall to make an impression. In fact, some works pull you right into an uncomfortable reality. These artists show how climate change, war, consumption, and the pursuit of profit find their way into impressive installations, photography, and sculptures that continue to resonate long after.
Forest full of bling
A large installation constructed from tree trunks with labyrinthine paths running through them was on display in the nave of the Grote Kerk Veere last year. Its creator, Bianca Runge, explores our relationship with the surrounding nature in her work. Her Labyrinth of the Future It symbolizes the runaway consumer society: the trees have been chopped down, and discarded jewelry and remnants of wealth are overgrown the trunks. In the accompanying text, you can read that an area the size of a football field is deforested on Earth every second. With this work, the artist also emphasizes the role that trees can play in preserving our planet.
Steel on stilts
The Amsterdam-based sculptor Herbert Nouwens placed 20 massive steel sculptures like a sort of sentinels along the Brettenpad in that city. You see robust, hybrid steel forms standing in the surrounding landscape, consisting of separate parts that have been assembled by Nouwens. He first cut, twisted, dented, and heat-treated the parts, subsequently welding them together into a single sculpture and applying a coating to the whole. His preference for steel stems from the material's plastic and structural possibilities. With it, he can shape what fascinates him: extreme contrasts, apparent weightlessness, and large volumes that can sometimes be very transparent. For the sculpture group Brettensuite He arranged his series of sculptures in such a way that the whole looks like a row of beads on a string, or as he himself says, 'like a suite by Bach'. The route runs from Westerpark to Sloterdijk Station.
Nature with on/off button
The title of the work by Bram Kuypers I didn't expect to meet everyone this way refers to the commotion surrounding the Yuntai waterfall in China. This waterfall is supplied with water via pipes bypassing the waterfall, ensuring tourists are not disappointed during droughts. Specifically for the IJssel Biennial 2025, Kuypers recreated a waterfall with flowing water that cascades over an artificial rock face. He placed it inside a massive shipping container in the middle of the natural landscape along the IJssel. In doing so, he aims to demonstrate how far we as humans go in adopting the artificial. The water for Kuypers' installation was continuously circulated via an ingenious pumping system and a water basin constructed by himself.
Streetview in War Mode
The six-meter-long war monument Here is my heart! ('Behold My Heart') by Dawwa, recently on display at Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen, takes the form of a ruined façade in a violence-ravaged Damascus. The work is based on a meticulously reconstructed and destroyed street in that Syrian city and is extremely detailed. You see broken cars and bicycles lying in the street, bombed façades, and inside the houses, set tables stand untouched. Due to the civil war, Dawwa fled Syria to France with his family a few years ago. Visitors to the exhibition were invited to reflect on the lasting consequences of war and oppression, and the impact thereof on entire cultures and peoples.
Beeldenaanzee.nl/nl/khaled-dawwa
Butterfly on tour
The journey of the painted lady from South to North has been captured in a sublime way by Lucas Foglia in the photo series. Constant BloomThe impressive series of photographs was shown last year at the Fotomuseum Den Haag. You saw how the butterfly flies from North Africa to Norway in ten generations and the route it takes. In every country the butterfly visited, Foglia photographed this delicate species in its natural environment. It became clear that the butterfly is forced to alter its route due to climate change: this is how it can survive. Foglia intertwines the story of this delicate species with that of humans, and with his photo series draws poignant parallels between butterflies and refugees following similar routes in search of safety and food.
Where mountains disappear and profits appear
Canadian photographer Tanea Hymnes created a photo series about Labrador City, which was on display at Art Rotterdam last year. It concerns a mining area in Newfoundland with iron ore mines, some of which are abandoned. She traveled there and documented what she saw with her camera. It changed her perspective on the global economy, because the scale of mining proved to be enormous: millions of tons of rock are still being moved, rivers are being diverted, and mountains are disappearing. The miners are merely part of a system consisting of many links. They do not see the fruits of their labor, because the raw materials are processed into products elsewhere. The negative impact of mining on ecological systems is enormous here. The endless drive for faster production proves to be more important than the damage this mining causes to people and nature.
Parody of the business world
Yeşim Akdeniz effectively demonstrates how objects carry stories in her work. She believes that objects can never be neutral; according to her, they always carry a personal or political history with them. By bringing together industrial waste, mass-produced goods, and artisanal elements, she reveals the hidden social histories concealed within those materials. Akdeniz has a Turkish background and lives in Western Europe (partly in Brussels and partly in Düsseldorf). During the last edition of Art Rotterdam, she made an impression with a solo presentation at a gallery from Istanbul. With one of the works shown, New Faces in TownAt the fair, she presented a cheerful parody of the business world; it consisted of three black shoes, a light fixture, and a travel suitcase. In this, the tension between the personal, the political, and the business came to the fore beautifully.
