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PODCASTS

TEXTS

25.08.2021 Studio encounter by Nienke Coers for Sea Foundation
17.02.2021 From the amazon to 254Forest: Change is the only constant in life by Koert Snoekx for BRUZZ
08.02.2021 Anouk Kruithof stelt je blik weer scherp met ‘Universal Tongue’ in de Gentse Vooruit by Yasmin van ’t Veld for DE LAGE LANDEN
01.09.2020 In the studio: Earth is already crying by Jesse van Winden for COLLECTORS AGENDA
23.10.2018 Een plasticsoep van beeld by Maarten Buser for TUBELIGHT
01.09.2018 Dubbele lagen in Beeld by Evelien Lindeboom for PF MAGAZINE
17.11.2017 Anouk Kruithof – ¡Aguas! CAHIER (English or Dutch) by Hinde Haest for FOAM
01.10.2017  Conversation with Anouk Kruithof by Joline Platje for GLAMCULT
01.10.2017  Fluent Sculptures by Camille Tallent for STEIDZ
01.03.2017 Introduction on Anouk Kruithof by Etienne Hatt for ART PRESS
01.07.2017  Collect and sort by color by Julia Geerlings for TUBELIGHT
01.12.2016 Interview with Anouk Kruithof by Sebastian Thewes for LIGHTRA
01.03. 2016 A Day With Anouk Kruithof by Paola Paleari for YET
28.02.2016 Happy Birthday To You, an interview with Anouk Kruithof by Joanna Cresswell for The Photographers Gallery
20.05.2015 Interview with Anouk Kruithof by Zippora Elders for FOAM
30.03.2015 Anouk Kruithof Talks Books, Travel, Feminism & More by Jessica Posner for LIGHTWORK
01.08.2015 Shifting Realities by Dan Rule for VAULT
01.08.2015 Anouk Kruithof by Sophie Wright for OFF THE AFTERNOON
11.05.2015 Sweaty Sculptures by Ashley McNelis for BOMB
01.12.2014 Anouk Kruithof – A Modern Flaneur by Alessandro Teoldi for PAPER JOURNAL
18.02.2014 Future Great: Anouk Kruithof by Jason Evans for ART REVIEW
01.06.2013 Coming from age, Anouk Kruithof (32) by Colin Pantall for BPJ
21.03.2012 A Conversation with Anouk Kruithof by Jorg Colberg for CONSCIENTIOUS
25.05.2012 Analog Interactivity and the Photography of Anouk Kruithof by Paul Moakley for TIME magazine
25.10.2011 Breaking the Wall by Alex Soth for LBM
05.07.2011 Anouk Kruithof, artist-in-residence in Het Vijfde Seizoen by Lise Lotte ten Voorde for METROPOLIS M

BIO

Anouk Kruithof (b. 1981, Dordrecht, The Netherlands) is a visual artist with a trans-disciplinary approach which encompasses sculpture, photography, collage, video, books, websites and (social) interventions in the public domain. The work depicts the transience and the chaos of this world, which she skilfully addresses by mixing urgent social issues with personal experience to mirror the state prevalent in our society today. Kruithof tries to reveal ‘the nerves of the time’ by deftly identifying social, psychological and ethical dilemmas. Observing, analysing, collecting, acting and reacting inform her thoughtful and playful work method, which does not at all detract from her serious approach as a social and political agent. In this time, Kruithof has formulated a highly idiosyncratic view of this world, one where the personal has become political. By continually navigating between the digital and physical experiential spheres, Kruithof investigates a collective state of mind that is not solely grounded in the material world, but more often in an amorphous one. She conteplates a world consisting of a relentless stream of edited, constructed and spliced-together images that have lost their credibility: resulting today in a reality that is thoroughly scripted and subject to permanent post-production. The scope of her world view extends from environmental pollution and the consequences of climate change to government surveillance practices, privacy to inequality and protest. From anonymity to signs of nervousness such as stress and exhaustion, sha- me and social discomfort, all in an effort to address a collective consciousness of human failing towards humanity itself and planet earth at large. Kruithof is acutely aware of her double role as image maker and image consumer. Just like the visual culture in which we live, her paradoxical layered work method is heart-warming and revealing, personal and universal, uplifting and oppressive, light-hearted and dystopian.

She has been working as an artist full-time since 2003 and currently lives alternately in Brussels, Berlin, Botopasi, Suriname and the Netherlands. Kruithof has had solo exhibitions in Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Centro de la Imagen Mexico City and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Her work has also been included in the collections of SFMoMA in San Francisco, Museum Folkwang in Essen and Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar. Kruithof published 15 books and she was selected for The Gallery of Honour of Dutch photography at Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam in 2021 and she won the public prize of the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunstprijs in 2016. Her most known project Universal Tongue is still intensively shown all over the world and has been exhibited in Museum Tinguely in Basel, Vooruit in Ghent and at WHOLE | United Queer Festival, Ferropolis, Gräfenhainichen, Germany.

STATEMENT

Abundance, I love. A situation where there is plenty of something can be either frightening or gloriously fulfilling. When I am diving in the ocean, surrounded by the abundance of water, I feel whole and tiny in one. Abundance can also be scary. When your mind is trouble or exhausted and you are part of a crowd in a demonstration, you can feel as if you can’t breathe anymore. Crushing. But when you’re in love, a thousand kisses are not enough.

All my work is a quest to find, question and show the ‘tonic for the nerves of this time’. For that reason, I choose issues of great immediacy that concern all of us and that everyone can relate to. I am fascinated with general burning topics or actualities, especially those concerning life on our planet and the future of human- kind — the most pressing being the environmental crisis and human inequality and injustice, which I can hardly comprehend in all their depth and potentially grave consequences. This prompts me to dig deeper. My work raises questions but it does not answer them. My aim is to move people on a mental, emotional and energetic level. My working method is itchy and revealing, person- al and universal, liberating and oppressive, light-hearted and dystopian.

My creative process usually starts with observations, followed by research and collecting material, which can vary from text to photographic images, from sound to videos, from found objects to natural and/or plastic waste. When I am busy with my collections, I feel like being in a large school of fish, moving together in the currents of the sea. Feeling small and strong at the same time. Sitting on top of my thousands of colorful books, slowly floating in my ocean of photographic images, or calling and texting with all the amazing assistants that were, as myself, madly searching dance videos from all around the world, I feel ‘connected’, I feel like I am more than just one being.

I gather all this information in my laboratory, which is a hybrid space both in my inner world and the ever changing physical studio, which can be anything from my studio in Brussels or the open space below my house in Botopasi, to the Amazon forest, the Suriname River, a sea or an ocean. I can find studio space in every place. I congregate all the material, boil it together, hammer it through, swallow it all, binge on it, love and hate it. I chew it until it’s transformed and, eventually, spit it out in a surprising shape that found its meaning along the way.

Being in flux is both uplifting and necessary for my life and work. My preferred state is malleability. My mind can handle multiple complex things at the same time and my body loves to be in contrasting environments. Order and chaos. Dark and light. Digital and analog. It may seem that contradictions are incompatible, but embracing opposites brings flexibility and energy. Hav- ing a paradoxical mentality shows the opposing sides that often form the base of complex issues. Unraveling the un-understandable can be done more effectively, not with ‘either-or’ thinking but rather with an ‘and-and’ perspective. Movement cracks my mind open and pre- vents me from getting rusty. It’s better not to give in to the fear of the unknown and cling to what one has, but to allow oneself to move towards a more vibrant and enlightened way of life. The ceaseless shapeshifting is what feeds me; by not being fully embedded in just one thing, I create openness in everything I do. Change is the only constant in life.

Having homes in both hemispheres and living in between cultures and biotopes. Being queer, often having more than on lover while traveling worlds. I am always on the move: physically, intellectually, emotionally, artistically. My identity is formed by being at home in all those different places, as well as of the moments of mov-ing freely between them. Therefor my practice thrives on a universal flow in this era of hybridity, collectivity and non-stop connectedness. My chameleon attitude functions as a resignation from a ‘signature style’ as a good-bye to the delusive purity of modernism, which feeds the commercial notion of a ‘brand’. In this sense, my fluidity neglects the notion of a clear ‘visual gram- mar’ and impairs the semantic autonomy of my work.It keeps my art attached to me — the heterogeneous positions of my work are justified through the various facets of my personality. My art is more an extension of myself, rather than a stand-alone and self-explanatory body of work.