Daan den Houter (1977, Dordrecht)
The last decade Daan den Houter has invariably managed to put his growing group of admirers on the wrong track. He has an unerring sense of aesthetics, which ensures the first draft of attention and keeps it there. But primarily Den Houter is a conceptual artist. The layers of his art functions like a slight slope - while the spectator at first finds himself staggering, subsequently he regains his balance.
To activate the viewers thinking about important topics like money, identity and values, Den Houter processes humor and sometimes cynicism in his images. The choice of medium for a particular work is always subordinate to the concept. The conceptual elaboration is the starting point for each work or series of works.
He addresses issues as money, identity, value and our commonly accepted perceptions on these themes.
The show - EN WAT NU ( - AND NOW WHAT - ) works are shown Den Houter developed and conceived during his residency in Los Angeles earlier this year. Den Houter is awarded the Grant for Proven Talent by the Mondriaan fonds.