Guido van der Werve was born in Papendrecht, the Netherlands in 1977 and currently lives and works in Finland, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Van der Werve pursued studies in industrial design, archaeology, music composition, Russian language and literature at several universities in the Netherlands before beginning to create his first video documented performances around 2000. He has gained international attention for his video works. He often plays the protagonist in his satirical videos, which balance between tragedy and comedy, and between idleness and non-sense. Overall, he offers a poetic point of view on existentialism and fatalism. More simply, he delivers an awareness of how lonely and absurd life can be at the same time.
excerpt
10min 10sec
Exhibited: Nummer acht, Everything is going to be alright, 2007
Shot in the North Pole, he is confronted in this video by the vast desert of the northern landscape. He challenges his own limitations and faces the exhaustion of time and space in which he is located. Once again, Guido van der Werve is performing himself, walking in front of an icebreaker. The unblinking eye of the camera captures the action, reminding us of the tableaux vivant genre. The simple, but endlessly repeated actions, create an unspoken narrative that betrays the artist’s obsession with the slapstick possibilities of isolation, sadness, and alienation.
