The publication of The House of Raw Matter follows the deluxe limited edition of 15 made in 2012 within the exhibition\u00a0programmes of Le Centre d’art Le LAIT in Albi and Art3, Valence.<\/p>\n
Niek van de Steeg intensifies his epic on the theme of raw material with the addition of a fourth portrait of a fisherman,\u00a0C\u00e9dric Giroud, whose story is bound to a viscous, synthetic oil detected in the River Rh\u00f4ne: the polychlorinated biphenyl,\u00a0collectively known as PCB..<\/p>\n
Since the beginning of the 1990s, Niek van de Steeg has developed forms as fragments of reality.\u00a0They are the centre of his creative process and form the basis of a construction, which is each time incarnated\u00a0in an exhibition. After Le Pavillon \u00e0 vent, la T.G.A.D. and its various developments, The House of Raw Matter\u00a0permits the artist to interrogate the principle of reality and that of exploitation and its networks. What happens\u00a0before the raw matter arrives, after various transformations and on the market? After examining coffee,\u00a0Niek van de Steeg turns to asbestos and uranium. How does man shape the land to extract these raw materials?<\/p>\n
Symbolic man-made landscapes are born from this exploitation. And there the artist unwinds the thread\u00a0of a story that borrows from the fragmented paths taught to us through documents; from the initial exploitation\u00a0to the current phase and its future. He uses the close-up, the overview, constructive elements, press articles\u00a0and the portrait to build a structure that serves him as a common thread. This wooden structure, the base\u00a0and foundation of the MMP becomes, in the artist\u2019s drawings, an ensemble built of elements in the manner\u00a0of a puzzle. We recognise numerous faces there: figures from history, from sculpture, from painting.<\/p>\n
The raw matter is enriched by all the points of view that Niek van de Steeg presents in a vertiginous montage.<\/p>\n
Lise Gu\u00e9henneux<\/p>\n
October 2012, text written on the occasion of the exhibition at art3 Valence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[63],"product_tag":[],"product_author":[114],"class_list":["post-1071","product","type-product","status-publish","product_cat-artist-books","product_author-niek-van-de-steeg-en","first","instock","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"product_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captures-editions.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_author?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}