Atelier Van Lieshout
Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL), established in 1995 by Joep van Lieshout, is a multidisciplinary collective that engages in conceiving and producing contemporary art, design and architecture.
This richly illustrated publication provides an overview of AVL's often provocative work: from art objects, items of furniture and mobile architecture to wholly self-sufficient survival campers, autonomous communes and surrealistic architectural projects.
Atelier Van Lieshout includes highlights such as AVL-Ville, the Free State that AVL created in Rotterdam's port, the large scaffolding installation that mixes sport and sex Sportopia; The Technocrat, the large installation in which 1000 burghers are reduced to mere cogwheels in a system to produce biogas; and the sinister utopian project SlaveCity, a 21st-century concentration camp with just one purpose: to make profit. With essays by art critic Jennifer Allen, architecture and design critic Aaron Betsky, sociologist Rudi Laermans and architecture historian Wouter Vanstiphout.
On the cover:
Nowadays, an artist is not only an artist but also a manager, a salesman a PR person and more. The multiple roles and multitasking involved in AVL-Ville gave rise to the romantic drawing Artist's Dream. Instead of taking care of PR and management, the artist makes sketches all day long, accompanied by multiple women and organic food. As his designs take shape on paper, they are immediately realized by slaves. No longer is there any difference between the designing stage and the building stage; the blueprint is concurrent with the final construction. In this dream, the romantic artist designs a biogas installation while the slaves build and operate the unit: the toilet, the pump, the digester, the septic tank and the green filter.