Marijke van Warmerdam (born 12 March 1959,

Nieuwer-Amstel Amstelveen () is a municipality in the province of North Holland, Netherlands with a population of 92.353 as of 2022. It is a suburban part of the Amsterdam metropolitan area. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the historical villages o ...

) is a Dutch

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

ist.

Biography

Marijke van Warmerdam has been developing a characteristic body of work including film, photography, paintings and sculptures since the 1990’s. She is best known for her short film loops, with which she first garnered international attention at the Venice Bienniale in 1995. Shortly thereafter, her work ''Douche'' (''Shower'', 1995) was displayed for an extended period of time on one of the platforms of

Schiphol Airport railway station Schiphol Airport railway station (previously Schiphol until 12 December 2015) is a major passenger railway station in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands. It is located directly beneath the terminal complex of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and is operated ...

, where thousands of travellers could see the film while waiting for their train. Van Warmerdam relies not on story-telling but on the visual power of the motif: a hat dancing in the wind, a drop of milk slowly dissolving in a glass of water, a girl doing a handstand or a red suitcase sliding down a snowy mountain. Through endless repetition, these seemingly trivial events take on a sculptural quality and an almost dreamlike beauty. In their simplicity, van Warmerdam’s sculptures, photo works and paintings are closely related to her film loops. Her view of the world is lighthearted, humorous and unexpected. Van Warmerdam is a regular advisor at the

Rijksakademie The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school support ...

in Amsterdam and Professor of Art at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Exhibitions (selection)

In 1995, together with

Marlene Dumas Marlene Dumas (born 3 August 1953) is a South African artist and painter currently based in the Netherlands. Life and work Dumas was born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa and grew up in Kuils River in the Western Cape, where her father had ...

and Maria Roosen, she represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale. In addition, van Warmerdam has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including the Sydney,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and Gwangju Biennales, and Documenta X. She has had solo exhibitions at the

Van Abbemuseum The Van Abbemuseum () is a museum of modern and contemporary art in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel River. Established in 1936, the museum is named after its founder, Henri van Abbe, who loved modern art and wante ...

in Eindhoven, the ICA in Boston, MAC in Marseille and The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. A retrospective of her work has been shown at

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located a ...

in Rotterdam, the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

Works in public collections

Van Warmerdam’s work is represented in various international public collections: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
TextielMuseum, Tilburg
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
Museum De Domijnen, Sittard, The Netherlands
Huis Marseille, Amsterdam
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam
MUDAM / Museé d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
Pinault Collection, Paris
FRAC, Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier
FRAC Bretagne, Châteaugiron
Centre George Pompidou, Paris
MAC, Marseille

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (, ''Dresden State Art Collections'') is a cultural institution in Dresden, Germany, owned by the State of Saxony. It is one of the most renowned and oldest museum institutions in the world, originating from the ...

Südwest LB forum, Stuttgart
Städtische Galerie, Karlsruhe
MUHKA, Antwerp

BOZAR The Centre for Fine Arts (french: Palais des Beaux-Arts, nl, Paleis voor Schone Kunsten) is a multi-purpose cultural venue in Brussels, Belgium. It is often referred to as BOZAR (a homophone of ''Beaux-arts'') in French or PSK in Dutch. The b ...

, Brussels

SMAK Smak ( sr-Cyrl, Смак; trans. ''The end time'') was a Serbian and Yugoslav band from Kragujevac. The group reached the peak of popularity in the 1970s when it was one of the most notable acts of the former Yugoslav rock scene. The band's l ...

, Ghent
Museum Horsens, Horsens, Denmark
New National Museum, Oslo

Castello di Rivoli The Castle of Rivoli is a former Residence of the Royal House of Savoy in Rivoli ( Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy). It is currently home to the Castello di Rivoli – Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, the museum of contemporary art of Turin. In 19 ...

, Turin
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan
Museu Serralves, Porto

Awards

1988: Uriôt Prize
1992:

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

(Art & Public Space)
2004: David Roëll Award

Biography

Exhibitions (selection)

Works in public collections

Awards

References

Further reading