ConceptDries Verhoeven

Work work work

[:nl]Time Clock Piece copyright Tehching Hsieh.[:]

On an increasingly efficient production floor, we work against the odds. Our bodies are on the brink of burnout, while robots and artificial intelligence threaten to replace us. Alienated from our humanity and burdened with a latent feeling of inadequacy, we exploit ourselves and each other. Can we still revolt, or must we also automate our resistance?

“Work work work” transformed Frascati Amsterdam into a temporary museum for performance art. The building welcomed visitors for eight hours, mirroring a typical workday. The exhibition of live arts, including works by Dries and six other artists, explored the evolving role of humans amidst automation. The event showcased numerous performances, visual artworks and videos that examined the relationship between employer, employee, and (art) consumer.

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Dear beloved friend,

At the start of 2023 Dries flew to Lagos, Nigeria to create a work exploring a potential future African exodus. However, the performers of Kininso Koncepts were hesitant to portray themselves as possible migrants. They preferred to turn the lengthy history of stereotyping on its head, and to direct their gaze at us, Europeans. A camera crew from Nollywood, the heart of the African film industry, leapt on board. Armed with cameras, film lighting, and a high-speed internet connection, they created a piece centred around our European self-image now that our expectations of the future here begin to falter. How deep-rooted are the images of ourselves and the other? How long can we hold onto our comfortable position of power?

Dear beloved friend, is a live film performance. The work was performed at the Seaside Cottage Theatre in Lagos and screened live in theaters and at festivals in the Netherlands.

The NarcoSexuals

Foto Alwin Poiana

Foto Willem Popelier

Foto Alwin Poiana

Foto Willem Popelier

Foto Alwin Poiana

Foto Willem Popelier

In The NarcoSexuals Dries Verhoeven portrays a group of men who lose themselves in sexual drug use. Visitors can walk around the replica single-family home, and peek through the windows at the depiction of a chemsex party.

In one sense, the work questions our relationship to subversion and brazen sexual gratification in an increasingly sanitised public domain. Yet the performance also shows men in their faltering search for vulnerability and companionship. Are they the vanguard of a new liberation movement? Forty years after gay liberation, are we entering a ‘narco-sexual revolution’? Or have we ditched our sexual ideals and left the revolution lying comatose on the couch?

Brothers exalt thee to freedom

[:en]Brothers exalt thee to freedom, performance [:nl]Broeders verheft u ter vrijheid, performance[:]

[:en]Brothers exalt thee to freedom, performance Het HEM[:nl]Broeders verheft u ter vrijheid, performance Het HEM[:]

[:en]Brothers exalt thee to freedom, view from the stage, ITA Amsterdam[:nl]Broeders verheft u ter vrijheid, beeld vanaf podium, ITA Amsterdam[:]

[:en]Brothers exalt thee to freedom, stage set[:nl]Broeders verheft u ter vrijheid, toneelbeeld[:]

[:en]Exhibition West Den Haag, video work 'To perform'[:nl]Tentoonstelling West Den Haag, videowerk 'To perform'[:]

[:en]Exhibition West Den Haag, living quarters performers[:nl]Tentoonstelling West Den Haag, woonvertrekken performers[:]

[:en]Brothers exalt thee to freedom, casting day performers[:nl]Broeders verheft u ter vrijheid, castingdag performers[:]

[:en]Exhibition West Den Haag, objet trouvé, painkiller dispenser[:nl]Tentoonstelling West Den Haag, objet trouvé, pijnstiller dispenser[:]

[:en]Brothers exalt thee to freedom, performance [:nl]Broeders verheft u ter vrijheid, performance[:]

In a robotised distribution center, ten Bulgarian performers, who have experience as labour migrants, sing a historic labour song for eight hours long. Their work breaks are derived from those at e-commerce company Amazon. By juxtaposing robotics and singing, the performance questions the value of the working body, the labour movement and the legacy of socialism in times of automatisation. Audience members can attend the performance for as long as they wish.

An exhibition exposes a.o. the living quarters of the performers and objets trouvés from various work floors. The video work ‘To perform’ and the documentary film ‘The recruitment’ (about the creation of the work) reveal the performers’ views on the performance and the politics of labour.

Happiness

[:nl]Happiness in Kaunas (LT) (Martynas Plepys)[:]

Happiness

[:en]Happiness in Barcelona (Sylvia Poch) EN[:nl]Happiness in Barcelona (Sylvia Poch) NL[:]

[:nl]Happiness in Kaunas (LT) (Martynas Plepys)[:]

[:nl]Happiness in Hannover (Helge Krückeberg)[:]

Happiness in Berlin (Derk Stenvers)

Happiness

There’s a small concrete building situated in the public space, it looks like a cross between a public toilet and a pharmacy. This illicit store is manned by a humanoid, a human-looking robot. She talks to us about different drugs, painkillers and antidepressants we can use to tweak our emotional reality by re-jigging the serotonin and dopamine levels in our brain.In the combination of robotics and drugs, the work explores the zone where the human and the artificial merge; where, aided by synthetic substances we can rehumanise or become more than human. Or escape our human state entirely, for a while.

Guilty Landscapes

Guilty Landscapes, episode I - Hangzhou

Guilty Landscapes IV (Pieter Kers, Beeld.nu)

Guilty Landscapes, episode IV - Pattaya (Pieter Kers | Beeld.nu)

Guilty Landscapes, episode II - Port-au-Prince

Guilty Landscapes, episode III - Homs

Guilty Landscapes, episode IV - Pattaya

Guilty Landscapes, episode I - Hangzhou

Guilty Landscapes, episode II - Port-au-Prince

Guilty Landscapes, episode III - Homs

Guilty Landscapes, episode I - Hangzhou

Guilty Landscapes, episode II - Port-au-Prince

Guilty Landscapes, episode III - Homs

Guilty Landscapes, episode IV - Pattaya

episode I Hangzhou

episode II Port-au-Prince

episode III Homs

episode IV Pattaya

What initially appears to be a pre-recorded video of a troubled zone somewhere in the world turns out to be a live internet connection. While the museum visitor moves about the space, the person at the other end gazes back at them, mirroring their movements, with no display of moral judgment. The protagonist seems barely, if at all, affected, by the assumed misery and appears to downplay his apparent role of victim.

Instead of addressing the issues of the specific location, the work focuses on the viewing experience. It problematizes the viewer’s attitude to ‘the pain of others’ and the assumptions and power relations implicit in that gaze.

Homo Desperatus

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, Fukushima (Japan)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Fukushima (Japan)[:]

Homo Desperatus, Torre di David, Caracas, (Venezuela)

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, Rana Plaza, Dhaka, (Bangladesh)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Rana Plaza, Dhaka (Bangladesh)[:]

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, Gevangenenkamp Guantánamo Bay (Cuba)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Detention Camp, Guantánamo Bay (Cuba)[:]

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, Pripjat, Tsjernobyl, (Oekraïne)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Pripyat, Chernobyl (Ukraine)[:]

Homo Desperatus

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, vluchtelingenkamp Al Zaatari, Mafraq (Jordanië)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Al Zaatari Refugee Camp, Mafraq (Jordan)[:]

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, Pripjat, Tsjernobyl (Oekraïne)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Pripyat, Chernobyl (Ukraine)[:]

[:nl]Homo Desperatus, Lampedusa (Italië)[:en]Homo Desperatus, Lampedusa (Italy)[:]

[:en]Homo Desperatus at the Verbeke Foundation (BE)[:nl]Homo Desperatus bij de Verbeke Foundation (BE)[:]

44 display cases contain true-to-life scale models of sites of human suffering such as the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba and a collapsed clothing factory in Bangladesh.

Every showcase is inhabited by an ant colony. The work transforms the museum into a formicarium: 70,000 ants try to build a life on replicated sites of human catastrophes. Each location is equipped with a nano-camera that films the location. The ‘news footage’ is projected live in the same space.

The visitor zooms in and out, between an analytical distance and emotional involvement in the suffering of the human species, represented here by the ant.

The Silent Body

A soundproof glass wall separates a naked performer from the museum visitor. He or she fantasizes about a sexual encounter with the viewer. The pane of glass renders the words inaudible—the performer seems to have been silenced—but the words are immediately converted by a speech to text app, and projected on the rear wall.

On the one hand, the work articulates the desire for physical closeness, and addresses the viewer as a sexual object, yet on the other immediately eliminates any possibility of physical contact. The glass seems to censor the words. It illustrates the domestication of our wild, animal natures.

Sic transit gloria mundi

[:en]Sic transit gloria mundi, construction site[:nl]Sic transit gloria mundi, bouwplaats[:]

Sic transit gloria mundi

[:en]Sic transit gloria mundi, timeline[:nl]Sic transit gloria mundi, tijdlijn[:]

[:en]Sic transit gloria mundi, construction site[:nl]Sic transit gloria mundi, bouwplaats[:]

[:en]Sic transit gloria mundi, animation[:nl]Sic transit gloria mundi, animatie[:]

[:en]Sic transit gloria mundi, gift shop[:nl]Sic transit gloria mundi, souvenirwinkel[:]

Sic transit gloria mundi

[:en]Sic transit gloria mundi, construction site[:nl]Sic transit gloria mundi, bouwplaats[:]

Sic transit gloria mundi

A construction site in the centre of the city serves as a model for a world in transition, where ideas about power and control begin to shift. A billboard announces the construction of a “monument to the fall of Western hegemony”. Tall wooden fencing separates the building site from the city. It’s an invasive gesture, the city’s people are shut out. A feeling that is amplified by posters in Arabic, Russian and Chinese.

From the visitor centre on the building site one can see the purported building plans. The design, a monumental marble statue of a fallen Caucasian male, ties in with the discussion about historical statues as a symbol of Western imperialism. The only tangible indication of the monument is a gigantic white hand that is continually moved around the site.

Phobiarama

The work examines the impact of the ‘politics of fear’ on today’s society of the spectacle. Conceived along the lines of a funfair ghost train, the installation triggers visitors’ fear receptors by seemingly sensational effects. Taking their seats in a fairground car, they rattle through a series of spaces. Flickering TV screens illuminate the space, which booms with the apocalyptic rhetoric of politicians and terrorists. A troupe of sinewy performers, men of color, invades the installation; individuals who are subject to ethnic profiling in daily life. At first, they flaunt the familiar attributes of this fairground ride—costumed as a grizzly bear or clown—but their appearance and intentions become progressively ambiguous. The boundary between real life and theme park increasingly blurs.

Ceci n’est pas…

Ceci n'est pas notre désir

Ceci n'est pas le futur

Ceci n'est pas l'histoire

Ceci n'est pas la nature

Ceci n'est pas mon corps

Ceci n'est pas de l'amour

For ten days, an ‘unwelcome representation of things’ is shown in a glass booth in the city centre. The exhibition of ten living ‘statues’ features individuals who, to varying degrees, are considered social outcasts. Behind soundproof glass they are presented as rare relics. Hinting at La Trahison des Images (The Treachery of Images) by René Magritte, the work analyzes the tension between a word and a representation of that word in an image. The work explores the reasons behind different forms of social unease, and the need to show and discuss that unease in the public domain.

Wanna Play?

Wanna Play? in Utrecht (NL) (2015)

Wanna Play? in Utrecht (2015)

[:nl]Wanna Play? in Berlijn (2014)[:en]Wanna Play? in Berlin (2014)[:]

Wanna Play? in Utrecht (NL)(2015)

Wanna Play? in Utrecht (NL) (2015)

From within a big glass enclosure installed on a city square, Dries Verhoeven chats about intimacy with users of the online dating app Grindr. He asks them to drop in and meet his non-sexual needs. Like washing each other’s hair, singing together in the shower, or holding hands for an hour. Day and night for ten days, Verhoeven’s life and search for connection, are on public display.

Projected non-stop on a large screen, Verhoeven’s (anonymous) chats can be read by anyone. During those ten days the digital public space, the internet, becomes a visible presence in the analogue public space, the street.

Songs for Thomas Piketty

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Wiesbaden (DE)[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Wiesbaden (DE)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Leuven (BE)[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Leuven (BE)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Utrecht[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Utrecht (NL)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Rotterdam[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Rotterdam (NL)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Utrecht[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Utrecht (NL)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Leuven (BE)[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Leuven (BE)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Utrecht[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Utrecht (NL)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Rotterdam[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Rotterdam(NL)[:]

[:nl]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Engelskirchen (DE)[:en]Songs for Thomas Piketty in Engelskirche (DE)[:]

In urban areas where begging has been banned, Verhoeven installs (aluminum replicas of) boom boxes that sing and beg for change. Verhoeven works with a large group of homeless people and, for a little while, returns their voices to the streets. The work explores the public space as a reflection of society—do we let businesses and security services decide what’s permitted on our streets, or do we also grant the inconvenient, sometimes wheedling or irritating voice of panhandlers a place?

Fare Thee Well!

Fare Thee Well! Vancouver

Fare Thee Well! Rio de Janeiro

Fare Thee Well! Vancouver

Fare Thee Well! Terschelling

Homo Novus 2015 atklāšana

Visitors look through a telescope and see a slow-moving text on a news ticker two kilometres away: a collection of things and ideas that we as a society have bid farewell or recently embraced. Händel’s opera aria Ah! Spietato plays on their headphones.

The work is a response to gloomy and apocalyptic future scenarios. Whether we should accept, lament or fine-tune these changes remains unclear.

The Funeral

[:nl]De Uitvaart. De Europese gedachte[:en]The Funeral. The European Ideal[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart. Onze verzorgingsstaat[:en]The Funeral. Our welfare state[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart. Het enfant terrible[:en]The Funeral. The enfant terrible[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart[:en]The Funeral[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart: Het Duitse schuldgevoel [:en]The Funeral: The German feelings of guilt[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart[:en]The Funeral[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart: De verzorgingsstaat[:en]The Funeral: Our welfare state[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart. Ons geloof in God[:en]The Funeral. Our belief in God[:]

[:nl]De Uitvaart: Onze postkoloniale schuldgevoelens[:en]The Funeral: Our postcolonial guilt[:]

Ten solemn funeral masses reflect on the doom rhetoric of politicians and cultural pessimists. The spectators mull over the ‘death’ of vanished ideas, values or social conditions: The idea of European ideal, Our belief in god, German collective guilt, and so on.

The ceremony is followed by a procession through the city and a funeral at a designated cemetery. By including visitors in the ritual, they are made complicit in the happening, which activates their position in relation to the alleged death.

In an installation, reminiscent of a hotel, each audience member will get their own bedroom. Here they are alone and anonymous, until they learn about the visitors in the other rooms. In its original set up the work functioned as a model for the anonymity associated with city life, where people simultaneously live similar lives. Due to the social implications caused by the pandemic of 2020, the work was also a reflection on our time in self isolation, a time in which the proximity of strangers suddenly became a threat.

No man’s land

[:nl]Niemandsland in Athene (2014)[:en]No man's land in Athens (2014)[:]

[:nl]Niemandsland in Utrecht (2008)[:en]No man's land in Utrecht (2008)[:]

In the hall of a train station, twenty spectators wait for twenty former refugees. The spectator follows one of the migrants during a walk through the city. On their headphones they listen to different scenarios of their silent guide’s potential life. The aim isn’t to reveal the identity of the guide, but to disrupt the viewer’s gaze. The text speculates on the life of the migrant. And with this, the work questions the idea of authenticity in the lives of refugees: why share the truth when lies can garner you a better life?

Life Streaming

Life Streaming (2010)

Two internet cafés are connected. In Europe, twenty visitors chat with twenty performers in Sri Lanka on the beach hit by the 2004 Tsunami. What starts as an innocent chat evolves into a conversation about our empathic brain. The performers question their own victimhood and try to find out what pushes Western buttons.
Interventions in the space transform the conversation into a physical experience. The piece ends when the European internet café is inundated by warm water.

The Big Movement

[:nl]De Grote Beweging (2006)[:en]The Big Movement (2006)[:]

Reality is subtitled in The big movement. Spectators sit in a small custom-made cinema and see life as a film, as it is playing out at that moment outside the cinema walls. Unsuspecting passers-by play the main roles.

A Chinese voice-over describes life as it is happening outside; subtitled in the language of the country in which the performance happens. The audience hears what is exceptional about the everyday behaviour on a square in an average Western city, through the eyes of someone whose thoughts are determined by a collective mindset. For the Chinese voice-over actor, individual behaviour stands in contrast to the grand narratives about the origins of the universe, the earth and humanity. Through the Mandarin voice-over script, always using past tense as a dramaturgic device, the audience experiences a certain distance from the outside world.

After twenty minutes, the film stops, the filmed material is slowly rewound, the hasty individual movements change into a joint choreography. Shown ‘in reverse’, the passers-by appear to be aware of each other’s presence. Among the masses walking backwards, there is one person moving forwards. It appears to be the Chinese voice-over actor, a woman withdrawing from the group. The audience finally sees themselves in the film, they become aware of their own position in the collective human history.

God zegene de greep

God zegene de greep (2012)

God zegene de greep is a performative installation about the sense of community in times of predicted disasters. Do we move closer to each other if the catastrophic ecological and economic uncertainties materialise, or do we become more and more selfish and preservational if we see our demise with our own eyes? Twenty spectators take their place in a rescue capsule; they all have a small speaker around their neck.

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Dark Room

[:nl]Donkere Kamer in Utrecht (2012)[:en]Dark room in Utrecht (2012)[:]

[:nl]Donkere Kamer in München (2011)[:en]Dark room in Munich (2011)[:]

Dark Room is a performative installation about the power and powerlessness of the human eye to create intimacy. With a panoramic camera, six blind performers film the city they cannot see. This film material is projected all round the spectators in the performance space. In the performance, the groping human walking in the city is placed opposite the seeing person in the theatre. Visitors experience how the blind perceive the city, each other and finally, the visitors themselves and how that perception differs from, or is similar to their own experience. The performers talk about their desire for intimacy/sexuality and about how the lack of sight helps or impedes that.

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Empty Hands

[:nl]Lege Handen (2009)[:en]Empty Hands (2009)[:]

Empty Hands is a performative installation about the way we perceive the dependent generations. Two generations stand on stage, five people under the age of 8, and five people over 80. The spectators, usually falling between these two generational extremes, are sitting in their seats; they are ancestors and descendants.

There are 20,000 empty eggs lying on the ground. There are ticker tapes hanging, dispersed throughout the room. The projected texts question our notions of the dependent generations. When we take physical responsibility for someone, do we still see that person as a complete person? Are they also allowed to have dangerous ideas, or does that dependence make the person simple and submissive? Do we dare to project the complexity of an adult life on the young kids? Or do we prefer to see their appeasing smiles?

Thy Kingdome Come

[:nl]Uw koninkrijk kome (2003)[:en]Thy Kingdome Come (2003)[:]

Two visitors are seated in a small space, separated by a soundproof glass wall. They both hear the pre-recorded voice of a performer. . This influences their behavior in the space and the perception of the other. The two silent visitors simultaneously think about the possibility of intimacy. Desires are shown as a construct; a random stranger can easily morph into a loved one or an object of desire.

Thy Kingdom come is translated in five languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish), enabling the creation of an international version allowing spectators talking various languages to meet.

In France, the performance was presented under the title, Au Milieu du gué, in Germany as Dein Reich komme.

Trail Tracking

[:nl]Sporenonderzoek (2005)[:en]Trail tracking (2005)[:]

Spectators walk alone through a deserted train station. The visitor enters into a discussion with a performer on their mobile phone. They talk about the various routes the visitor has taken in their life. At the end of the performance, it appears the performer has incorporated the information in the story being told. Seemingly insignificant stories unexpectedly get an important place in the performance. The visitor finally leaves the station on a rolling bed.

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Hartstocht

Hartstocht (2002)

Hartstocht is a theatrical bus tour allowing the spectators to experience an inverted world. They are transported through the city in a VW bus with blacked-out windows and an open roof. Mirrors are attached at waist height of spectators, and produces the effect of a city ‘sliding by underneath them’. The visitors see the bottom of buildings, churches, trees and clouds passing by. A text delivered through headphones makes it an associative performance about releasing control.

driesverhoeven

Archive

Work work work

Dear beloved friend,

The NarcoSexuals

Brothers exalt thee to freedom

Happiness

Guilty Landscapes

Homo Desperatus

The Silent Body

Sic transit gloria mundi

Phobiarama

Ceci n’est pas…

Wanna Play?

Songs for Thomas Piketty

Fare Thee Well!

The Funeral

You are here

No man’s land

Life Streaming

The Big Movement

God zegene de greep

Dark Room

Empty Hands

Thy Kingdome Come

Trail Tracking

Hartstocht