Dries Verhoeven (1976, Oosterhout, Netherlands) is a Dutch artist working at the intersection of visual and performing arts. He creates installations, performances, and public interventions that critically explore themes of spectatorship, fissures in contemporary society, collective vulnerability, and the mythopoetic dimensions of crisis. By destabilizing the boundaries between observer and participant, Verhoeven creates spaces where viewers confront their complicity in systems of power, their ambivalence toward mediated realities, and the fragile threads connecting individual agency to collective responsibility.
Biography
Dries Verhoeven studied scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht. As a scenographer, he collaborated with directors such as Marcus Azzini, Cornelis de Bondt, Ira Judkovskaja, Michel van der Aa, and Lotte van den Berg. Since 2003, he has been creating autonomous works, blending theater, performance, and installation art into thought-provoking experiences. From 2012 onward, his work has increasingly shifted toward time-based visual art. He draws on conventions from both theater (stationary spectatorship) and museums (mobile spectatorship), while also staging works in urban public spaces.
Verhoeven himself considers the question of discipline to be of little relevance; in his desire to destabilize the viewer, discipline/ medium is relevant only to facilitate an unexpected and multifaceted approach. The work often involves direct audience participation or places spectators in ambiguous situations that challenge their perception of reality. Many of the projects function as continuous loops without a clear beginning or end.
Collaboration is central to Verhoeven’s practice. He frequently works with underrepresented groups, whose lived experiences highlight ethical and social tension in contemporary society. His past projects have involved sex workers, shoplifters, recreational drug users, people with refugee backgrounds, and individuals experiencing homelessness.
In 2023, with the creation of Dear Beloved Friend, he took his first steps into cinematography. The film was produced live in Nollywood (Lagos, Nigeria) while being screened live in European theatres.
In 2024, Verhoeven curated Work work work, transforming the Frascati Amsterdam building into a temporary museum for performance art. The presentation juxtaposed Brothers, Exalt Thee to Freedom with works by Tehching Hsieh, Ahmet Öğüt, Pierre Bal-Blanc, Anna-Marija Adomaitytė, Julian Hetzel, and Gosia Wdowik.
In 2026, he will represent the Netherlands at the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, in Venice, Italy, in collaboration with Dutch curator Rieke Vos.
Dries Verhoeven has created productions for institutions including Wiener Festwochen, Lift Festival London, Münchner Kammerspiele, Schauspielhaus Bochum, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Nowy Teatr Warsaw, Holland Festival Amsterdam, SPRING Performance Art Festival Utrecht, Onassis Athens, and Festival TransAmériques Montréal, among many others.
His works have been exhibited at institutions such as West Den Haag, Het Hem Zaandam, Kanal Centre Pompidou Brussels, Kunsthalle Bonn, EMST Athens, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch, and Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Verhoeven has received the Young Directors Award at the Salzburg Festival (2009), and the Best International Performance Award at the Fadjr Festival in Tehran (2018). In the Netherlands, he has been honored with the Charlotte Köhler Prize (2002), the VSCD Mime Performance Prize (2008), the Fentener van Vlissingen Culture Prize (2022), and a Golden Calf for Best Digital Production at the Netherlands Film Festival (2023). His performances have been selected for the Dutch and Flemish Theater Festival (2008, 2023).
Since 2020, he has been a member of the Akademie van Kunsten (Dutch Society of Arts). Verhoeven resides in Amsterdam and Berlin.
publications
‘In Doubt’ published by Kerber. Overview of works 2003-2019, with essays by Christiaan Weijts, Maaike Bleeker and Evelyne Coussens (2020)
In ‘Thinking through theatre and performance’ (2019) Maaike Bleeker writes about the production of No man’s land
Intermedial Practice, principles and practice, door Mark Crossley. Dries Verhoeven on ‘Guilty Landscapes’ (2019).
Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink on Dries Verhoeven in ‘Nomadic Theatre, Mobilizing Theater and Practice on the European Stage (2019).
Intermedial Performance and Politics in the public sphere, Palgrave uitgevers. Katia Arfara writes about ‘No Mans land’ and other works (2018).
‘Scratching where it hurts’, Overview of works 2012-2015. Self published (2016). For € 18 (excl. shipping) you can order the book via pr@driesverhoeven.com.
Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement, Andy Lavender, uitgegeven door Routledge (2016).
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‘Contemporary art in Dutch churches, 1990-2015. From Jan Dibbets to Tinkebell’, Joost de Wal (red.), p.31 and p.121 (February 2015). This publication is in Dutch.
‘Partizipation der Blicke. Szenerien des Sehens und Gesehenwerdens in Theater und Performance’, Adam Czirak, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld (February 2012). This publication is in German.
’80 cm away from you’, voorstellingen/performances 2002 – 2009, Dries Verhoeven (2009).
texts by Dries Verhoeven
‘De liefdadige kunstenaar’ (The charitable artist), an article by Dries Verhoeven for a publication of the Akademie van Kunsten (2020)
read the article (in Dutch: pages 36-44 of the publication)
‘By touch’, Dries Verhoeven (2020).
‘Code Radicality’, Dries Verhoeven (2018).
read the article (in Dutch)
‘Only doubt can save us’, Dries Verhoeven (2017).
‘Tegen de ziekte van het vriendelijk comfort’, Dries Verhoeven for Utrechts Verbond on www.nieuws030.nl (2015).
read the column (in Dutch)
‘Keinen applaus bitte. Theater als kollektive Erfahrung’ (‘No applause, please. Theater as a collective experience’), Dries Verhoeven in Theater der Zeit. Go West, Theater in Fladern und den Niederlanden (2009).
read the article (in German)
Project related texts can be found at Works
articles
2024
“An observation on how little subversive power this form of ‘resistance’ ultimately has: it leads to no breakthrough, causes no cracks in the system, and does not disrupt the rhythm. This contrasts with forms of resistance that we have lost in many Western, individualized societies—namely, the organized resistance of the labor movement, the community of those who produce goods, rather than merely consume them.”
Jarosław Pietrzak writes about several works by Dries Verhoeven in the Polish edition of Le Monde Diplomatique.
read the full article (in Polish)
Project related texts can be found at Works
2020
“Many of Verhoeven’s creations are constructed to make us reflect on how we look, and on looking as a social and cultural phenomenon. […] Verhoeven draws attention to our role as spectators: to how we enact this role, and how we are complicit in how the world comes about.”
Article by Maaike Bleeker in Parse Journal in which she refers to the work of Dries Verhoeven (Issue 12, Autumn 2020)
read the article (in English)
‘You are Here is an impressive ritual for the 21st century. Not only does it encourage us to slow down and relax, but also restores a sense of openness in our relationship with others and ourselves.’
‘Impressive ritual for the 21st century’, Fransien van der Putt for Theaterkrant.nl (11-07-2020)
read the review (in Dutch)
Project related texts can be found at Works
2019
“In Verhoeven’s installations, happenings and performances, the viewer is implicated in the project in a way that is difficult to predict, and often radically so, although based on an open relationship—namely, that of a voluntary glance.”
Kasia Torz in Klaxon
read the article (from page 59)
“The muck has to go somewhere.”
For Mister Motley Selm Wenselaer interviewed Verhoeven about his installation Happiness at the NDSM-wharf and on the question if art can still disrupt the public space (19-03-19)
read the interview here (in Dutch)
“Verhoeven employed the censorship to provoke a discussion on the paternalism of the Finnish state.”
DutchCulture and the Dutch Performing Arts Fund organised Artistiek Kompas, a symposium on artistic freedom and censorship. An interpretation of four international cases in which artists had to adapt their work in order to be able to show it. (May 2019).
read the article by Errol Boon
Project related texts can be found at Works
2017
Wanna Play? is one of the works discussed in ‘Attention Please! Changing Modes of Engagement in Device-Enabled One-to-One Performance Encounters’
Eirini Nedelkopoulou in Contemporary Theatre Review (November 2017).
read the article
“Verhoeven masterfully displays the gap between the visible and the real: he displays, in front of the eyes of the spectators in an explicit and ‘live’ way, the artificiality of fear and that fear is nothing more than a product of ‘fiction.’”
Mehmet Kerem Özel wrote an article for Art Unlimited titled: ‘Dries Verhoeven’s theatrical world based on spectators’ experience’ (October 2017).
read the article
Project related texts can be found at Works
2016
Metropolis 2012-2015. Laboratory and festival for art and performance in urban space’ offers a retrospect of the Metropolis Festival in Kopenhagen where Ceci n’est pas.. was presented in 2015.
Verhoeven wrote a text about his motivations behind the project and researcher and blogger Sofie Henningsen analyses the work in a day-to-day diary (May 2016).
read the contributions (p.134)
‘Disruption is the objective’ (‘Ontregeling is het doel’).
Journalist Evelyne Coussens interviewed Verhoeven for the Flemmish newspaper De Morgen (28-09-2016).
read the interview (in Dutch)
‘A call for doubts’ (‘Een oproep om te twijfelen’).
Lieneke Hulshof interviewed Verhoeven for Dutch art blog Mister Motley (September 2016).read the interview (in Dutch)
‘With or without theater seats’
Paul van der Steen interviewed Verhoeven and Casper Van de putte in the context of 65 year Academy of Performing Arts Maastricht (March 2016).
lees het artikel (p. 12) (in Dutch)
‘Before I moved a vase, now I move the couch’
Wouter Hillaert interviewed Verhoeven for De Standaard (07-11-2015).
read the article (in Dutch)
Project related texts can be found at Works
2015 – 2012
‘Ants Against the Apocalypse’
Agnese Čivle interviewed Verhoeven for Arterritory.com (04-11-2015).
read the interview
“Dank dieser Installation verwickelten sich sehr unterschiedliche Passanten in Gespräche: Der öffentliche Raum wurde wieder zu einem Verhandlungsort scheinbar längst abgesteckter und kaum hinterfragter Normen.”
Neue realitäten: Jahrbuch des Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste 2014/15′ by Tobias Brenk (05-10-2015).
read the text (in German)
‘Has art boxed itself into a corner?’
Stuart Jeffries for The Guardian (09-02-2015).
read the article
‘Was macht das Theater, Dries Verhoeven?’
A discussion with Dries and Anna Volkland in Theater der Zeit (November 2014).
read the interview (in German)
‘Perceiving and Believing: An Enactive Approach to Spectatorship’,
Maaike Bleeker and Isis Germano in Theatre Journal (66:3), p. 363-384 (May 2014).
go to the download page
‘Nomad in No man’s land’
Tim de Hullu for AD/Utrechts Nieuwsblad (14-09-2013).
read the interview (in Dutch)
‘Seeing blind’
Karin Veraart interviews Verhoeven for De Volkskrant (18-05-2012).
read the interview (in Dutch)
‘Dries Verhoeven the one-man band’
Anne Gonon for Strada, p.46-48 (April 2012).
read the article
Project related texts can be found at Works
2011 – 2004
Thinking in motion’ (‘Bewegend denken’)
Essay by Nienke Scholts in Etcetera #125, p. 44 (June 2011).
read the essay (in Dutch)
‘”De toeschouwer is voor mij de hoofdpersoon. Ik wil weten hoe hij of zij kijkt en luistert, ik wil verwarren en beroeren, en hem vervolgens aan het denken zetten.”‘
Simon van den Berg interviewed Dries for the international English language magazine Dutch Mountains from SICA (01-02-2010).
read the interview
‘Buy a ticket for the world’
Marijn van der Jagt for Vrij Nederland (09-05-2009).
read the article (in Dutch)
‘The strength of the human dimension’
a portrait of Dries as a decor designer in response to After Life, the opera by Michel van der Aa (2009).
read the portrait (in Dutch)
VSCD MIMEPRIJS 2008 jury report
You are here and No man’s land, p.18-19 (16-09-2008).
read the jury report
‘Performing stories. About the creative process of Trail tracking (Sporenonderzoek)’
An interview with Dries by Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink (01-02-2008).
read the interview (in Dutch)
Up until 2005, the Stichting Aanmoedigingsfonds voor de Kunsten (Dutch Arts Incentive Fund) awarded an incentive prize annually to a young, talented performing artist working behind the screens: the Wim Bary Perspective Prize.
Verhoeven was awarded this prize in 2004 (17-10-2004).
read the jury report (in Dutch)
‘Danger must always be lurking in theatre’ (‘Bij toneel moet gevaar op de loer liggen’)
read the article (in Dutch)
Project related texts can be found at Works