Hans Op de Beeck

Hans Op de Beeck is a Belgian artist born in 1969 in Turnhout, Belgium. He studies Fine Arts at Sint Lucas in Brussels and participates in the program of the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Antwerp. We then worked for two years at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. In his work, Hans Op de Beeck mixes sculptures and videos, drawings and photos. If his models are often deserted, many of his photos and videos are made up of characters that he observes or stages. These characters are often enigmatic, like ghosts waiting for who knows what, sipping coffee or smoking a cigarette staring into space. These scenes represent boredom and absurdity pushed to the limit by the eternal repetition of the images. These looped passages, a technique used in most of his video works, agree with the image of the world he presents to us, turning on itself and repeating itself endlessly without being able to communicate. However, his works are never dark and swing between gravity, irony, sadness and humor. Op de Beeck thus places himself not as a moralist, but as an observer of the human being. For several years, he has been involved in numerous projects and group exhibitions. His works have been exhibited many times in Europe and the United States. In 2003, he took part in the PS1 project in New York, and in 2004, he participated in Art Unlimited in Basel, Switzerland, where he exhibited a life-size highway restaurant. More recently, his work has been presented at the Kunstverein in Hanover, the Shanghai Art Museum, the PSK in Brussels and the Drawing Center in New York.