GRIMM is pleased to present a showcase of recent works by Dutch artist Saskia Noor van Imhoff, opening January 20, 2022 at our New York gallery.
Saskia Noor van Imhoff sees the world as an organic collection, a system of organization in which mutual relations are determined by (in)visible structures. Her practice is concerned with the fundamental architecture of our existence in an artistic context. This would include the modes of selection, curating and preservation regarding art works and collections: the considerations that make for the political forces that ascribe value and produce appreciation and (re)presentation of art.
Recently, Van Imhoff has shifted her focus from the framework of the classic studio towards an outdoor space in a Dutch polder landscape that she is currently using as an open-air studio. It concerns a small strip of land that prior to her arrival was subject to neglect, as little energy was invested in any type of upkeep and the plot was mainly used as a dumping ground for all types of leftover materials. These circumstances provided the artist with the possibility to further expand on her interest in traces and remnants. Since arriving, she has been digging and planting, sanitizing the soil and creating a space that is fit for cultivation. During this process she discovered vestiges of former use. And, throughout, she has been documenting and archiving her findings, activities and own additions.
Examining the growth of plant life and the evidence of past activity embedded in the soil, the earth tells a story of human and nonhuman interactions. Van Imhoff interprets and compliments this story with archival materials such as maps and historical documents which she has used to inform her understanding of the terrain and contribute to a layered, visual conception of the property. The way in which the artist advances alternate systems of referencing the bounded area that belongs to her, brings into question how property and ownership is signified. Does the division of land by lines, or borders, produce a sense of ownership? Or, in the case of neglected or undeveloped land, why is it attributed with a sense of emptiness, subject to a different set of values from that which is “owned”?
The works now presented at GRIMM are part of this ongoing research. Driven by the conceptual and historical significance of objects and places, the works examine the growth of plant life and the evidence of past activity embedded in the soil. Grafting, the act of transplanting one part of a plant onto another holds deep interest for Van Imhoff as a metaphor for the progress of culture. She sees the manipulation of the landscape as a kind of grafting, deepening the relationship between people and place, a relationship through which the concept of nature is borne.
Van Imhoff conceives her process as marking a moment in time, a temporary combination of materials and circumstance which will inevitably undergo further permutations. Among the materials she uses, Perspex, photography, glass, neon lighting, and found objects are all appropriated to create new systems. By placing the various materials together, contradictions disappear and new connections arise.