The materials and themes that Wouter Klein Velderman uses for his sculptures and installations often have an industrial-like character. Metal, PVC-canvas and wood are the ingredients to depict matters like transport, mobility and storage. These constituent elements could result into a storage rack, a shipping container, or a complete factory site. Even a whale on the streets of a small Dutch harbour village or a giant Mickey Mouse in the jungle of Surinam becomes a somehow functional object.
Even though their subjects tend to have an industrial character, the sculptures have quite an opposite feeling to them: vulnerable, delicate, refined.
By treating the harsh, impersonal materials endlessly, with great care and tenderness, the sculptures come into contrast with their subject. They might even be experienced as hugely disappointing. A life-size truck next to a highway looks like it could collapse all of a sudden, a fully packed storage rack on a crowded Belgium square offers storage for unsellable “manic products”, and a huge H-profile is fastened to a Magnolia tree, as if the tree is helping us out, until we’ll find a destination for the profile.
"...An artist should be able to disappear inside the execution of his plans. There are several ways to arrive at this point. One would be a meditative approach: to be able to direct all attention to hands and eyes. Another one is to plan things that in one way or in the other are so large that they will consume you anyway. In all his works Klein Velderman clearly chooses the second path." Gijs Frieling
Commissions: 2014 De Vitrine (Commission by Stadsdeel West), Amsterdam, NL; 2013 Concept for Multifunctional park Borne, Borne, NL; Selection of solo exhibitions: 2013 MIR, Arnhem, NL; 2011 Galleria Spazioborgogno, Milan, IT; C&H Art Space, Amsterdam, NL;2010 P.ART of your life, Zwolle, NL; 2009 Galleria Spazioborgogno, Lisbon, PT; 2006 SM's, Stedelijk Museum 's Hertogenbosch, 's Hertogenbosch, NL. Selection of group exhibitions: 2012 Casa Testori, Milan, IT; 2012 Present Forever, Amsterdam, NL; 2012 Dordtyart, Dordrecht, NL; 2010 Noord Holland Biënnale, IJmuiden, NL; 2009 Subvision, Hamburg, DE; 2008 FOAM, Amsterdam, NL; 2007 Agorafolly inside/ outside, La centrale électrique/ Breughelplein, Brussel, BE; 2007 Cluster, Berlin, DE; 2007 Shelter, curated by Judith van Meeuwen, Museum De Fundatie, Heino, NL; 2007 Galleria Piercarlo Borgogno & W139, Miart, Fiera Internazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. Milaan, IT; 2006 Parkscapes A1, Highwayparkingspace 'Poppe', border of Germany, DE
