In her short video loops, Marijke van Warmerdam gently encourages viewers to find beauty and rhythm in the simplest of forms and actions. In Handstand (1992), a girl endlessly repeats a handstand against a white brick wall, while in Le Retour du Chapeau (The Return of the Hat) (1998) a hat dances in the wind; other videos trace the subtle dissolution of a drop of milk in a glass of water or the variations in light produced by a hand stroking venetian blinds. In recent years, van Warmerdam has produced photographs and sculptures with her characteristically deft touch, in which naïveté belies the complex new ways of looking that she demands of her viewers. She subverts the simple directness of her subjects and compositions with subtle adjustments of angle and scale.
In her short video loops, Marijke van Warmerdam gently encourages viewers to find beauty and rhythm in the simplest of forms and actions. In Handstand (1992), a girl endlessly repeats a handstand against a white brick wall, while in Le Retour du Chapeau (The Return of the Hat) (1998) a hat dances in the wind; other videos trace the subtle dissolution of a drop of milk in a glass of water or the variations in light produced by a hand stroking venetian blinds. In recent years, van Warmerdam has produced photographs and sculptures with her characteristically deft touch, in which naïveté belies the complex new ways of looking that she demands of her viewers. She subverts the simple directness of her subjects and compositions with subtle adjustments of angle and scale.