Maarten Vanden Eynde: The Art to Remember
The Art to Remember
It is with great pleasure that Høyersten Contemporary presents The Art to Remember with the Belgian artist Maarten Vanden Eynde (1977).
The exhibition is at once extensive and a very precise insight into Vanden Eyden's artistic practice. In his art, he has an almost archaeological approach to history, but also to our own contemporary time.
Vanden Eynde is deeply fascinated by the connection between the development of technology, including written language, tools and payment methods, and man's own evolution, such as societies, cultures and civilizations.
His practice is embedded in long term research projects that focus on numerous subjects of social and political relevance such as post-industrialism, capitalism and ecology. His work is situated exactly on the borderline between the past and the future; sometimes looking forward to the future of yesterday, sometimes looking back to the history of tomorrow. Currently he is investigating the influence of transatlantic trade of pivotal materials like rubber, oil, ivory, copper, cotton and uranium, on evolution and progress, the creation of nations and other global power structures. The initiated project Triangular Trade traces back the origin of the different materials and follows their (r)evolutionary path as they are processed and transformed into 'world changing wonders’.
In his artistry, Vanden Eynde investigates how we try to establish collective understanding through our tendency to interpret phenomenons and put together larger narratives based on available information. He looks at how different cultures examine and collect fragments and broken pieces from throughout history to contextualize them and thereby us. His works emphasize how we advocate for an objectively correct view on history, but stresses, indirectly and ironically, how our subjective point of view always colors or discolors our understanding of history, as it does to our present.
About
Maarten Vanden Eynde (Belgium 1977)
Artist and co-founder of Enough Room for Space.
Maarten Vanden Eynde graduated in 2000 from the free media department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (NL), participated in 2006 in the experimental MSA^ Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles (US) and finished a postgraduate course in 2009 at HISK Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Ghent (BE) where he is a regular guest tutor. Since 2020 he is a PhD candidate at the UiB / University of Bergen in Norway.
In 2017 he was nominated for the first Belgian Art Prize and won the Public Prize.
Vanden Eynde has held several solo exhibitions, including at Museum Eicas (2023), La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (2022) and Museum Mu.Zee (2021). He has also participated in a large number of group exhibitions, primarily in Europe and the USA.
Education
2020-2024: PhD in the framework of Matter, Gesture, Soul, University of Bergen, NO
2008-2010: HISK/Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Ghent, BE
2008/2009: Junior PhD on Monographic Museums at University Ghent, BE
2006: MSA Mountain School of Arts, Los Angeles, USA
1997-2000: Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Free Media Department, Amsterdam, NL
1995-1997: Sint-Lucas Institute, Graphic Design; successful with Distinction, Ghent, BE
Collections
KANAL/Centre Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium / Museum of Ixelles, Belgium / Municipality of Montbel, France / NOMAS Foundation, Italy / Bibliotheca Dominicana in Ghent University Library, Belgium / Mineralogical Museum of Campania, Naples, Italy / Province of Flemish Brabant, Leuven, Belgium / Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg, The Netherlands / Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke, Belgium / VBO / FBE, The Federation of Enterprises, Brussels, Belgium / Municipality of Puurs, Belgium / Belgian Embassy in Kinshasa, D.R. Congo / The Futurium, Berlin, Germany / Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium / DSM, Heerlen, The Netherlands / FRAC Lorraine, France / Belgian Embassy in Den Hague, The Netherlands / Various private collections.
The exhibition is in cooperation with Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design and is part of Maarten Vanden Eynde’s artistic result for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) in Artistic Research at the University of Bergen.
