Marc Bijls practice is about the contradictory, the old and new, the good and bad. He researches, questions and criticizes global themes such as political power, globalization of the economy and nationalism. This results in interventions that underscored or undermined world views. Views that are depicted in a various arsenal of media, namely the media of image, text and music and often influenced by figureheads of the contemporary art such as Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. Bijl mirrors contemporary society and its visual culture in an anarchistic and punk-inspired way, while alternating between street culture and political activity. His most recent work is more abstract and minimalistic, exemplifying a shift in approach, by which he pares down different perspectives and methodologies to a new essence. The crux is no longer the 'symbolism', but what that symbolism represents and signifies.
Interview with Marc Bijl about his work 'PORN', by the Groninger Museum
À propos
Review by ArtPulse
Dutch artist Marc Bijl (1970, Leerdam) is currently presenting a big mid-career retrospective at the Groninger Museum in The Netherlands consisting of a selection of his iconic paintings, sculptures and interventions. Elements such as Modernism, graffiti and nationalism get a conceptual twist in order to portray works that linger between the melancholic, utopian and anarchistic. His mix of high art and popular culture in the manner of a «Bourriaudian» post-producer doesn’t leave anyone indifferent.
Paco Barragán
Review by NRC about his soloshow 'Zeitgeist'
The labels and sweet colors serve as a smokescreen in a world full of disinformation. That regularly produces visually strong results. For example in the video Blurry Conflicts (2017), which shows a high-resolution foggy color cloud behind which video images of conflict areas are hidden. The result is reminiscent of the fresh start-up screen of some smartphones. Attractive, and in this case also frightening.
Mistiness is the subject of the work that Marc Bijl made for his exhibition Zeitgeist. With his art, he wants to show that news in hyper-slick image quality can also be diffuse or even misleading and how we sometimes look away from facts.
Thomas van Huut
Het Parool about soloshow 'Zeitgeist'
“The work of Marc Bijl has undergone a transformation. Before, the tone was set by black and white, by punk and goth, by good and evil. Now Bijl has found a new direction. […] In a world full of images, Bijl immerses the spectator in a cloud of vagueness. Behind the imposed cheerfulness of Bijl’s colors lies an inky world view, in which the truth is eroded by fake news.”