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About

 

 

PIEKE BERGMANS

Dutch artist Pieke Bergmans [1978] studied at art school St.Joost-Breda, Design Academy-Eindhoven, ArtEZ-Arnhem and Royal College of Art-London-Master of Art.

Bergmans is considered one of the most influential artists working in the twenty-first century, straddling boundaries between art and design. She occupies a unique position in the field, embodying sculptural and installation art and craftsmanship into her oeuvre. The vast majority of her work is handmade and Bergmans directs the craftsmen and production-process.

Bergmans founded a studio in Amsterdam and Milan in 2007 and since then realized exhibitions around the globe at leading fairs, institutes and museums like Victoria & Albert Museum-London, Vitra Design Museum, 21-21 Design Sight Tokyo etc.

Bergmans’ work is part of relevant private and permanent museum collections like Stedelijk Museum-Amsterdam, Centre Pompidou-Paris, MUDAC-Switzerland, MoMa-Kuwait, CNAP-Paris, Groninger Museum etc.

In 2013 Bergmans became ‘designer of the year’ in Brazil. And in 2014 the Noordbrabants Museum in the Netherlands showed a retrospective of her young career.

 

WORK & PROCESS

Characteristic of Bergmans’ work method is her close study of existing production processes that she then manipulates and reworks. Using this approach she gives the material room to choose its own way. She is amazed at how many materials are squeezed into straitjackets, with no room for the natural characteristics of the material to shine out.

Bergmans collaborates with technical specialists. Various works are produced in series under her direction. Bergmans intervenes at a certain moment in the production process so that the still freely moving shape is brought to a stop. Hence every object is unique. The result is a ‘frozen’ moment. ‘Free’ has become ‘Freeze’.

Bergmans has not restricted herself to one sort of material in her repertoire but works with glass, clay, steel, plastics etc. All are materials that become soft and malleable by heating during the production process. While cooling they become hard and the process of creeping, twisting and !owing is brought to a halt.

Process and end object are inextricably bound together for Bergmans. As soon as she intervenes there is no way back for the object. Each series evolves due to repetition of the produc- tion process. The results can be just as surprising for Bergmans as they are for the viewer.

POETRY & MACHINES

‘The objects that surround us have the precision and regularity of machine-made things. Our Western world became a world where everything has to fit in and function. We all benefit from this development in an enormous was, but a world like a machine leaves little room for wondering and poetry. I want to open up our evident world, as I am passionately curious and persistent to expose another, unknown world’.

VOLKSKRANT

Jeroen Junte – 2014 – Recensie: **** 4 sterren – Tentoonstelling Pieke Bergmans – FREEZE

DROOMKUNST IN STERIELE OPSTELLING

‘’Duidelijk dus, Pieke Bergmans (1978) maakt geen inwisselbare gebruiksvoorwerpen. Met ontwerpen die de tijd bevriezen, biedt Pieke Bergmans een alternatief voor de kille vluchtigheid van de huidige tijd. De Amsterdamse ontwerper maakt verstilde en toch levendige objecten die je even laten wegdromen. Veel te saai, vind ze die. Ze wil de harde werkelijkheid juist verzachten met een vleugje magie van de kussende lantaarnpalen en een lamp die als een ballon leeg loopt over een stoel. Maar altijd weer is die drang er om de wereld op zn kop te zetten. Pieke Bergmans durft los te laten om op het juiste moment halt te houden. Freeze , zoals ze dat in Amerikaanse politieseries zeggen. Met deze ontwerpen die de tijd bevriezen biedt ze een alternatief voor de kille vluchtigheid van de huidige tijd. Een tijd die inderdaad wel wat fantasie kan gebuiken.’’

NOMINATION ROTTERDAM DESIGN PRIZE

By Aziz Bekkauoi – 2012

”I find Bergmans’s frank curiosity admirable. She moves people with her concept of controlled imperfection. Without regard to trends, she begins with a material and a craft and then performs an intervention on them, almost abruptly, in a seemingly regressive way. Her evolving way of working, which is unfettered by time. Her clever works seem to have been created in passing, intuitively and on impulse. In reality, they are the result of keen observation and structured experimentation, synergies of creation and natural selection, brought down to a new essence. Another vital characteristic of her work is the way it sticks with you. It hangs around, creeps, meanders and flows, not just in space but also in your head. Her work gives the impression of being in motion – that if you look at it again, a split second later, it will have inched closer to you and started to multiply.”

DESIGN VIRUS

A central theme in Pieke’s work is the virus. It binds the many disciplines and materials she works with.
‘I am a virus’

Pieke’s objects are called viruses, due to their natural forms and the way they come to life. But eventually, the biggest virus of them all is the designer in person. Manipulating standard production processes is by all means viral behavior. In general mass production, a single form is endlessly and perfectly multiplied like a healthy cell. As she allows room for change and serendipity, Pieke aims to create processes in which objects are never completely the same. Like a virus, her works change and adapt to various conditions, disrupting common ideas and the predictable evolution of form and design.