Bruce Silverstein is delighted to announce the representation of Dutch contemporary artist, Marjan Teeuwen. Her first gallery exhibition outside of Europe, Destroyed House, opened in February 2018.
In her aptly titled body of work, Destroyed House, Teeuwen reclaims the wreckage of abandoned buildings assembling each fragment in painstakingly detailed installations, set within the original structures. These temporary living artworks are present for their surrounding community to experience, but they ultimately exist only through the carefully composed photographic images which Teeuwen captures for posterity with her large-format camera. Her images illuminate the precarious balance of the power of destruction with the constructive implications of order and function.
Teeuwen explores themes related to architecture, reconstruction, loss, and memory through performance, painting, installation, and the photographic medium. In 2008, Teeuwen began seeking out buildings in her native Holland that were slated to be demolished. She breaks down the homes, and then reconstructs the inside into architectural sculptures using the fragments of debris from the walls, floors, ceilings within the building’s dilapidated structure. Teeuwen revitalizes these spaces by creating near monochromatic sculptural installations; turning chaos into order. The newly constructed installations echo their original forms, with hints of floor, window, doorway, but are wholly transformed into carefully conceived environments. These spaces exist independently from their previous incarnations, yet they occupy the same physical location.
In 2016, Teeuwen visited Gaza, and created Destroyed House Gaza in a home that had been bombed. Her process of rebuilding took on a deeper gravitas when responding to a territory defined by such a horrific conflict.
Born in 1953 in Venlo, Holland, Teeuwen now lives and works in Amsterdam, Holland. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Tilburg, followed by Academy of Fine Arts and Design St. Joost in Breda. In 2014 Teeuwen participated in a residency in Johannesburg, South Africa, which led to her project, Archive Johannesburg.
Her work has been exhibited at ARCAM, Amsterdam, Holland; the Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, Holland; the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, Holland; Stedelijk Museum’s-Hertogenbosch, Museum Het Valkhof Nijmegen and the Museum Van Bommel Van Dam, Venlo, Holland.
