Guido van der Werve

Personal details

Van der Werve was born in Papendrecht, the Netherlands and currently lives and works in Finland and Berlin. He pursued studies in industrial design, archaeology, music composition, and Russian language and literature at several universities in the Netherlands before beginning to create his first video documented performances at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy around 2000. Van der Werve initially started out doing performances but because he disliked the live aspect, he started to film them with simple video cameras. The registrations became gradually more cinematic and professional over the years. Having a background in music Van der Werve tries to create visual art, which communicates as direct as music. In 2006 Van der Werve did a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. In 2008 he moved to New York. From 2010 on Van der Werve has been living in the Finnish countryside and Berlin. Van der Werve is an avid runner and triathlete. He's a black T-shirt finisher in the 2012 Anniversary race of the Norseman triathlon. His PB in the Marathon is currently 2.57.06 ran in the Berlin Marathon in 2013. He also finished all of the six World Marathon Majors in under 3:15 minutes, including the terror attacked Boston Marathon of 2013. In 2011 he summited Aconcagua in Argentina, with a height of 6972 meters.

Works

Van der Werve has created a variety of works, including a series of film and videos and a musical composition titled by number in chronological order from two to seventeen. Number ten and number fifteen being monographs each about the five years of works prior to the book.

Works include:

Nummer twee, Just because I’m standing here doesn’t mean I want to. 03’08”, 35mm, Papendrecht NL, 2003

Nummer drie, Take step fall 10’38”, 35mm, Amsterdam NL, 2004

Nummer vier, I don’t want to get involved in this. I don’t want to be part of this. Talk me out of it. 11’49”, 35mm, Zandvoort, Siitama & Enschede NL 2005

Nummer zes, Steinway grand piano, Wake me up to go to sleep, and all the colors of the rainbow. 17’09”, 35mm, Amsterdam NL, 2006

Nummer zeven, The clouds are more beautiful from above 8’48”, HD video, Amsterdam NL, 2006

Nummer acht, everything is going to be alright 10’10”, 16 mm film to HD, Golf of Bothnia FI, 2007

Nummer negen, The day I didn’t turn with the world 8’40”, time-lapse photography to HD video, Geographic Northpole, 2007

Nummer twaalf, variations on a theme 40’00”, 4k video. Marshall Chess Club, Mt St Helens & San Andreas Fault USA, 2009

Nummer dertien, effugio c, you’re always only half a day away 12 hours, HD video, Hassi Finland, 2011

Nummer veertien, home 54’00”, 4k video, Poland, Holland, Germany, France, Egypt, India and Greece, 2012

Nummer zestien, The present moment, Three-channel HD video installation with player piano, Amsterdam, 2016

Nummer zeventien killing time - attempt one: from the deepest ocean to the highest mountain, 2015

Besides his films, Guido van der Werve did several live performances of the music of his films accompanied by an orchestra.

In 2011, Van der Werve performed at the grand opening program for the St. Louis location of the World Chess Hall of Fame. He performed his piece, "Number Twelve : Chess Piano Concert in Three Movements" which combined the mechanics of a piano with the layout of a traditional chess board.

In 2008 he created "Nummer acht :, everything is going to be alright" where he is seen walking 15 metres (49 ft) in front of an icebreaker.

For his film "Number Nine : the day I didn't turn with the world", he went to the geographical North Pole where he turned with the sun for 24 hours, thus not turning with the world for one day. This marked the start of a series of endurance based works:

In 2009 he started the annual Running for Rachmaninoff run, running from his gallery, Luhring Augustine, to the grave of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff in Valhalla in Upstate NY, a 55 km run. The first year only Guido completed the run, in 2011 he finished with 2 people and in 2012 three persons managed to complete the run. Participants have to carry with them a booklet of Chamomile flowers to be placed on the grave. The 2015-2016 Running for Rachmanninoff run was ran by the artist alone back to back on December 31 of 2015 and January 1 of 2016

A documentation of this run (on slides) is the first part of "Nummer dertien", the first performance through which he started incorporating sports in his art. Other parts of "Nummer dertien" feature Van der Werve in a 12-hour video work in which the artist is running around his house in Finland for 12 hours and climbing to the summit of Mount Aconcagua and "Nummer veertien" where he completed a 1600 km triathlon (7x the ironman distance) from Warshaw to Paris. Music often plays a key role in van der Werve's work, being trained as a classical musician he seeks for a similar directness to his art as music has.

Works by Guido van der Werve are a.o. in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands and Museum Catharijne Convent, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Reviews and articles

On Nummer Veertien: Tineke Reijnders in Ons Erfdeel

Jerry Saltz in NY Magazine

Christopher Knight in the LA Times

Roberta Smith in the New York Times

On Nummer acht and Nummer negen Jessica Dawson in the Washington Post

Raul Martinez in Art in America

Awards and prizes

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

Galleries

Guido van der Werve is represented by: