Borzo inaugurates the new gallery space on Keizersgracht with an exhibition of triptychs by herman de vries. He can make art from all the seeds, leaves and branches he finds in the Bavarian Steigerwald. The strength of de vries' work lies in his structured approach. “If someone gave you a sheet of paper with three autumn leaves stuck on it, you would think it was made by a toddler. Not with herman.”
Last summer herman de vries turned 90 years old. Reason enough for the southern French museum Lieu d'Art Contemporain to dedicate an exhibition to this striking artist. The exhibition was co-curated by Borzo’s Paul van Rosmalen, who is now showing it on the first floor of Het Roode Huis on Keizersgracht; once the home of master forger Han van Meegeren.
de vries was trained as a botanist in Wageningen. In the 1960s, artist friend Henk Peeters became involved in the NUL group, the Dutch branch of the Zero movement. This group made serial, often white work with simple materials, so that as a maker, they were not present in the work of art. This also explains why de vries avoids capitals in his name. At that time, de vries made his random series, working with dots, circles and squares based on a randomly chosen algorithm.
In 1970, de vries settles in the Steigerwald, a nature reserve in northern Bavaria. Gone are the squares and dots that characterize his Zero works. From that moment on, his work consists of everything he finds in the forest. Even today, de vries still sees himself as a Zero artist, says Van Rosmalen. “herman has remained true to Zero's principles in that he accepts the organic materials he uses as he finds them”. This is reflected, for example, in the triptych clematis - hopfen - knöterich from 2001. The compositions consist of nothing more than the dried branches of these plants.
The structural element of de vries' work is also reflected in the works from the From Earth series that can be seen at Borzo. They are white sheets of paper over which a little soil has been rubbed from a certain area. It always states where and when the monster was won.
The colours range from ocher to crimson and from grass green to black. Together they form a portrait of an area. That can be as big as a continent, but it can also cover a smaller region. In the run-up to his presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2015, for example, de vries made a portrait of the Laguna of Venice containing, in addition to a number of earth rubs, all the leaves, plants and algae that he found. He made something similar for the southernmost tip of Europe, the Greek island of Gavdos.
For Van Rosmalen, this approach is what makes de vries's work so strong. “You have to know the story and only then you see the beauty”. In the fall of 1975, de vries sat under an apple tree for 1, 2, and 3 hours at a time to glue all the leaves that fell on the sheet. “It is a non-act, and that also marks the philosopher-artist. If someone gave you a sheet of paper with three autumn leaves stuck on it, you would think it was made by a toddler. That is not the case with herman."
herman de vries. 90 is on show until 18 December at BorzoGallery, Keizersgracht 321, Amsterdam