Oliver van den Berg

I’m not interested in adding anything to the overall thing

The exhibition title “I’m not interested in adding anything to the overall thing” can certainly be understood as the underlying principle of Oliver van den Berg’s artistic approach. He has never been interested in things that yearn to be something new or unknown. Rather, he is inspired by existing phenomena and objects, which he seeks to pay homage to in whatever form of repetition.
Oliver van den Berg’s objects are variations, deformations, accumulations, reductions, citations, encirclings, juxtapositions, imitations of what’s given. Even if his sculptural approach concerns representation, repetition, imitation, the forms he creates in his work are always his own.
In our current exhibition we present for the first time the works “Transmitterwand” (2012) and “Linie größter Vergangenheit und Zukunft (Radar)” (2014).
An extensive, ca. 370-page monograph documenting the work of Oliver van den Berg over the past twenty-five years will be finished during the exhibition. van den Berg’s works “Elfenbeinträger” (2016) and “Ivory Bouquet” (2017) are also on currently view in the special exhibition “Terrible Beauty. Elephant—Human—Ivory” at the Humboldt Forum through January 23, 2021.

Oliver van den Berg (b. 1967 in Essen) studied painting and sculpture at the University of the Arts (former Hdk) in Berlin. He is the recipient of numerous grants, such as the work stipend in the visual arts of the Berlin Senate Chancellery or the Stiftung Kunstfonds as well as the scholarship of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. His work has been featured in numerous international group exhibitions like „Made in Germany“ at Kunstverein Hannover, Sprengel Museum and Kaestnergesellschaft in Hannover (2007), „Rückkehr ins All“ at Hamburger Kunsthalle (2005), „berlin_london_2001“ at ICA in London (2001), „Kurs“ at Museum Fuglsang in Denmark (2009), „Serious Games“ at Museum Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt (2011), „zoozoozoo“ at Kasseler Kunstverein (2016), „news flash“ at Kunsthaus im Kunstkulturquartier in Nuremberg (2018), „Fly Me to The Moon. 50 Jahre Mondlandung“ at Museum der Moderne in Salzburg and at Kunsthaus Zurich (2019) and „schrecklich schön. Elefant – Mensch – Elfenbein“ at the Humboldtforum Berlin (2021).