Opening April 1 at the Lightner Museum, War & Pieces is a monumental artwork created by artist Bouke de Vries. Learn more about de Vries' practice on this visit to his London home and studio.
I just saw BDV's exhibit in Legion of Honor in SF last week. I do admire this artist's unique imagination, vision and obvious skill sets applied in a very unorthodox reinterpretation of beautiful damaged objects. Listening to the artist, he is very excited in breathing new life in a most mutable way - it is HIS great artistic discovery. However, I had a visceral dislike and unsettling sense of its (for lack of a better word) emotional manipulative quality. I don't think it was intentional but his works, as I stand there gritting my teeth, just rubbed me the wrong way. Gimmicky at times, inventive most certainly, quirky and sometimes poetic . One's inherent wish to preserve or recapture the beautiful past is strong and to artistically explore, reinvent and exhibit its "brokeness" in new forms is a jarring contradiction.
