Walter van Rijn (NL/UK)
big data, cultural history, human rights, political, environmental, art object, dispersion, dispersal practice, distribution, institutionalisation, status of the art object, post-conceptual art, post-institutional critique, post-internet, post-X, digital, process, materiality, hybrid, ambiguous object, digital object, symbiosis, archive, aggregation.
How Can You And I Ever Be Free In the 21st C?
My work explores the natural and digital networked world and its many contradictions. From big data to detail, from complex bodies to singular objects, entities move through both these worlds and are transformed and hybridised by it. I am transfixed by this constant movement, while deep down nothing changes.
I try to be mindful of people and things shaping each other at the same time, and I create multiple layered, interconnected things that seek out the boundaries of our thinking about this or that.
Commission?
My work lends itself very well to be created on commission. I enjoy the interaction with space and commissioners to work out the best way this opportunity is served to create new work. Many of the text-based works, for example, use texts or data that is directly related to the space in which it is shown or related to the commissioner/collector. In the case of the installation commissioned by the John Hansard Gallery I only used text and data from their archive. If you see anything that excites you on this site, please email me!
How Can You And I Ever Be Free In the 21st C?, is a question I keep on asking, considering the time we live in. And what do freedom and truth mean today, thinking about the current political situation where human rights and the environment are completely sidelined. Extrajudicial executions and the 6th mass extinction event, for example, don’t seem to translate into political change.
I create work that combines art and design, hybrids of image and text in digital and analogue form. The artworks can take any shape and have an unusual and speculative way of distribution and communication. Recently, I use meta-data as my material and create work in the form of typefaces, fictive collections and algorithmic text-based work. A cross-media practice which is dispersed alongside exhibited multi-media installations through printed matter, performances, public art, and websites. I am born in the Netherlands and live and work in the UK.
Overview of essays and texts: https://waltervanrijn.art/tag/text/
Newsletter
Subscribe to my Newsletter for invitations to Private View, updates on exhibitions and new work.
Links
ARTIQ [London Art Consultancy that rents out my work]
Saatchiart.com/waltervanrijn [Sales worldwide]
Font Library [Collection of my typefaces with open license]
ResearchGate [Collection of my writing]
Artist’s Books [Most of my artist’s books are collected by Artists’ Books Special Collection, Winchester School of Art]
Linkedin
SoundCloud
Recent work and exhibitions include:
2021 Telephone, an online collaboration with Nathan Langston, curator Madeline Hoak and the Telephone crew, New York. Online exhibition from 10 April, showing Tis True Without Lying. Catalogue by Crosstown Press New York.
2019 The Other Art Fair, 14-17 March 2019. The Old Truman Brewery, London.
2018 Time After Time, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton UK. 08.09 – 03.11.2018.
2018 Artist’s book A_Selection_Of. With text Archival Machinations by Jane Birkin and artwork based on the Exhibition Archive John Hansard Gallery.
2017 Jane Birkin & Walter van Rijn, To Perform: SO: To Speak, VVVR, 2017. Artist’s book.
2017 How Can You & I Ever Be Free In The 21stC. Performance with Jane Birkin @ SO: TO SPEAK festival of words, Southampton.
2017 #REDboard2017, RED Contemporary Arts, Hull. How Can You & I, Poster on Bill board 3x6m. Commissioned by Red Contemporary Arts. Funded by Hull, UK City of Culture.
2016 Unconsumable Global Luxury Dispersion, John Hansard Gallery, UK. A research and archival project about the exhibition history of the gallery. Commissioned by the Hansard Gallery and supported by Arts Council England.
2016 Published BeingHuman, a font that creates hybrid and dispersed art objects.
2015 Telephone, an online collaboration with The Satellite Collective, New York. showing Off-Site Desert Showroom Superform{ance} On-Stage On-Line A Blue Cobra Collects Death Like (2013).
2014 Image-Text-Object: Practices of Research. Hartley Library Gallery L4, University of Southampton.
2013 Furtherfield Gallery: IRL exhibition 0P3NR3P0 as part of the Glitch Moment/ums. Showing audio and text based work A Artist St Artistff.
2012 Yes we’re open: Annlee @ NIMk project. Exhibition at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam, NL. Online and gallery based collaboration showing digital prints and audio at the last exhibition of the institute.
2012 (Im)Possible School Book: As Found. Contributed a version of the TITLE(date) project to the event and book (Im)possible School organised by Edward Dorrian, Project Space Five Years. This event formed part of the Tanks Summer School evenings at Tate Modern.
2009 SoundUnit Awarded public art commission, initiated by Rolls-Royce, Chichester District Council and University of Chichester. Large sculpture at the entrance of artOne building at University of Chichester.
2006 The Wormhole Saloon V. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Late Night Fridays: Adventures in music, performance, and art showing Access Denied installation.
This work by Walter van Rijn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license are available at https://waltervanrijn.wordpress.com/contact/.
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