herman de vries

Exhibition at the Center for Artists’ Publications
Works from the collection of the Brokken Zijp Foundation of Art.

The exhibition is dedicated to the oeuvre of the Dutch artist herman de vries. On display is not only a retrospective of his extensive edited oeuvre, but this is simultaneously located within his fascinating artistic cosmos. Among herman de vries’ typical and best-known editions are the earth rubbings, such as the “library of earth colors 1993-2005” (2005), and the dried and pressed plant parts on white cardboard in boxes. He takes soil and rubs it on paper with his finger. He has now collected over 8,000 earths from all over the world.

The Dutch artist, who was known in the 1960s as a representative of Informel, moved to Eschenau in the Steigerwald in 1970 and since then has focused on nature. In 1956 he created his first white collages, in 1959 his first white painting, and in 1962 his first aleatoric works. 1961 herman de vries, with Armando and Henk Peeters published the first number of “nul = 0”. From 1965 to 1972 herman de vries edited the “revue intégration”. From 1991 on, six issues of a new “integration – zeitschrift für geistbewegende pflanzen und kultur” appeared, edited with Wolfgang Bauer. The two manifestos “manifest van de gecastreerde werkelijheid” and “wit is overdaad” (white is overpowering) appeared in 1960, his first artist’s book wit 1962. from 1974 to 2015 he published 72 small publications or artist’s books in the “Eschenauer Summer Press”, which he founded. herman de vries wrote several books about his chance art, essays about language and about Ludwig Wittgenstein, about old plant names and ecology.

The collection of individual works ranges from early text works to a large-scale collage of 2109 blueberry leaves on white cardboard from 1986. some of herman de vries’ early works can be classified as concrete poetry, which he then developed further in the sense of visual poetry. In this context, he later compiled old plant and place names in his text works. For herman de vries, concrete poetry developed over the years into a poetry of nature.

“i have been working with nature since 1970” formulates herman de vries. The connection between art and nature has become his artistic trademark. For decades he has worked exclusively with found objects from nature, which he sorts like a natural scientist and puts into visual order. His art is located in both the micro and macro cosmos of nature. He uses simple artistic-scientific techniques and processes, such as collecting, drying, pressing, rubbing, isolating or assembling materials from nature. In this way, he arranges plants, leaves, branches, soils, natural relics into pictorial structures that reveal the diversity and differences under which nature is created.

The works by herman de vries shown in the exhibition come from the Brokken Zijp Foundation of modern and contemporary Art (BFA) in Liempde, the Netherlands, and are complemented by works from the various archival and collection holdings of the Center for Artists’ Publications.

An exhibition of the Center for Artists’ Publications
With the kind support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands