Videoloop

2x Full HD (1080 x 3840)

no sound
time: 736
2013

Harm van den Berg

For Harm van den Berg art is connected

with the experience of space. In his
work he tries to give the viewer a notion
of place. This can happen in the pictorial
space of a painting or video work, but
it can also relate to the place where the
viewer actually is (mostly: the exhibition
space). In a more abstract sense it is
about a mental space.

< Chairs, 2010, oil on Dibond / acrylic on canvas, strings of dried paint, 125 x 220 cm

Seen from the perspective of a viewing

experience, many of his works can be
described as crossroads: a place where
the viewer has several possibilities that
require a choice or positioning. It starts
with the practical and effective question:
Where am I? And then there is the
more existential positioning inherent to
that question. The experience of space
is layered and often ambiguous. Bianca
Stigter mentioned it in the following
extract:

< Garden Party, 2010, oil on Dibond, 125 x 180 cm

The visual idiom of Cubism was left

behind in the early twentieth century,
but its ideas are sill with us. You
could describe Harm van den Bergs
Garden Party as a cubist painting.
Time and space can hide away in a
painting; they can multiply, divide,
dissolve. Or stay.
(Cat. From a Painters Perspective, p. 80)

Nature is an important motive in his

work, which is closely related to his
interest in the nature of space. Natures
pure form does not as such interest
him, but it does so where it meets and
clashes with culture. Jurriaan Benschop
wrote about this as follows:
The work of Harm van den Berg
normally relates in some respect
to nature. It may be a landscape
setting or a floral motif, both
painted with aesthetic gusto. Yet
a disruptive force intrudes, ruining
< Pool, 2012, oil on Dibond, 125 x 180 cm

the natural quality or undermining

the romanticism. The experience of
nature has a duality here: on the one
hand it is admiring and aesthetic,
but on the other quite the opposite.
Playing a part in all this is the partly
defined character of the scenes.
Asmuch remains out of the picture,
still unstated or overpainted, as is
filled in or established as a subject.
It is this indefiniteness that makes
room for the friction which, to me,
isthe actual content of the work.
(Cat. From a Painters Perspective, p. 3)

www.harmvandenberg.nl

design: ingrid scheinhardt

INVERSION

Harm van den Berg (1970)

studied at the Gerrit Rietveld
Academy in Amsterdam at
theaudio visual department.
His work is shown at Museum
The Paviljoens in Almere
(NL), Zoo Gallery, Nantes
(FR), Galeria Klovicevi,
Zagreb (HR), Dutch Media
Art Institute (NL), W139 (NL),
DeVoorkamer, Lier (B) and
ACInstitute, New York City
(USA). Harm van den Berg
lives and works in Amsterdam.

The video work Inversion shows

indoor and outdoor spaces of
anabandoned shelter in aforest.
The camera slowly scans the
landscape, showing traces of
silent inversion, a process in
which nature is taken over by
culture and culture by nature.