source: artspace

Johannes VanDerBeek is a multi-media artist and sculptor who examines notions of time, the built environment, transformation and myth through the reimagining of familiar objects and cultural imagery such as tin cans, newspapers and old magazines. VanDerBeek often reflects on his immediate physical surroundings, creating casts of the walls and floor of his studio which inspired a range of sculptural contours for his 2012 show A Head Backwards at Zach Feuer Gallery. In other bodies of work he incorporates playful, dreamlike imagery into his installations as seen in his 2010 sculpture Hippie Ghost, a life-size hippie character made of transparent, multicolored aluminum mesh and his 2007 Bush, a large bush sculpture with leaves made of wax that each contain a semi-translucent painting of outer space. With these imaginative elements VanDerBeek displays his larger interpretations of history and nature through simple manipulations of everyday materials.

Johannes VanDerBeek has had three solo exhibitions at Zach Feuer Gallery in New York and one at Brand New Gallery in Milan in 2011. He exhibited a solo project at PS1 MoMA in 2006 and in 2009 he participated in an exhibition conceived by his father, artist Stan Vanderbeek, titled “Amazement Park: Stan, Sara, and Johannes VanDerBeek” at the Tang Museum.