Marjan Teeuwen: Installation Art or Hoarding?

Marjan Teeuwen

Why does it seem like if this happens in San Francisco, your landlord calls Public Health Services, but if it happens in The Netherlands, you get to install it in a museum? Seriously, as long as there’s no used diapers, food wrappers and dead cats in the midst of this installation by Marjan Teeuwen, I’d love to spend some time in it.

Marjan Teeuwen

Look closely and you’ll see a woman (perhaps the artist?) tucked snugly into this scenario. The Saatchi Gallery explains:

Crammed spaces is the dominant theme in the work of Marjan Teeuwen. She explores this theme through various media (photography and film) bound by a consistency of approach. The rooms piled up to the ceiling with an inestimable quantity of objects. Too much for the eye to take in at once. The objects are combined according to function, texture and colour, and ordered in a ramshackle architecture of rows and columns. The balanced arrangement of the elements gives clarity and structure to the whole.

Marjan Teeuwen

When I first saw the image above and the one below, I thought that the installation was the same, and just the saturation had changed. Not even close. Teeuwen kept the room, but changed the entirety of the contents.

The ceilings, floors and walls are no longer recognisable as such, thus removing the certainty of perspective. Spaciousness and dynamism find their opposites in oppression and confinement. Perspective and flatness battle for our attention, influencing the orientation of the viewer, who is, as it were, sucked into the work. The works are characterised by their obsessive nature and their sense of claustrophobia.

Isn’t it interesting how different people view art? I actually look at this work and see beauty and a sense of accomplishment in the order.

Marjan Teeuwen

The materials used in Teeuwen’s installations come from destroyed houses and furniture.

The polarity between destruction (decay) and construction (creation) is on focus. Everything is broken and orderly arranged in small pieces in an archive. Here the colours are black and white, many ranges white or many ranges black. Although the human figure is absent, its presence is nonetheless strongly tangible. The visible void is in fact crammed with life.

I like that: “The visible void is in fact, crammed with life.” Awesome.

Bonus: I’m not usually one to quote comedian Kathy Griffin, but her Hoarders routine is HILARIOUS. Click through for the video.

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