Pieke Bergmans
to become
Becoming. Coming into being.
People speak, materials remain silent. People act, things are made. In the work of Pieke Bergmans, the boundary between the two has never been taken for granted.
From early on in her practice, Bergmans did not begin from the idea that an artist imposes form on matter. On the contrary, she starts from the inherent properties of the material itself. Glass flows, expands and slows. Ice melts. Air moves. Gravity pulls. Matter responds, shifts, resists and gives direction.
In "Solidified Water" (2011), on view at Bradwolff & Partners, this becomes tangible. A tree trunk is split into nine sections, over each of which hot, molten glass bubbles are blown. Bergmans observes and choreographs the process. Without a mould, the glass grows and moves across the wood, sagging, swelling and continuously changing shape. Bergmans follows the process closely, looking for the moment when the glass is on the verge of collapsing or breaking under its own weight. It is precisely at this point that she intervenes, holding time still. A fleeting moment within an ongoing stream of change is solidified.
Bergmans seeks to show the world in her work as it continually unfolds: natural forces at work, forms emerging and changing again. Not as an image of reality, but as reality itself — in the process of becoming. And we are not outside this process. Through what we do, say, make and leave behind, we take part in what the world becomes.
Pieke Bergmans (1978) studied at St. Joost in Breda, Design Academy Eindhoven, ArtEZ in Arnhem and the Royal College of Art in London. In 2007, she established studios in Amsterdam and Milan. Since then, she has presented exhibitions and projects in the Netherlands and internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Vitra Design Museum and 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo.
Her work is held in the collections of museums and art institutions including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Groninger Museum, Centre Pompidou and CNAP in Paris, and MUDAC in Lausanne.