Pieter Joost Bruyniks is a Dutch painter and installation artist, currently living and working in Amsterdam.
“In my late twenties the (side-) jobs in combination with painting took more time and for years making was on the back burner. So early in my forties I decided again to be a painter. I became a member of an artist collective, initiated and organized art events and started to explore other art disciplines. This really took off when I entered the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and started to work with all different kinds of materials. During the years at the academy I realized that making sculptural installations is what challenge me most. And which subjects fascinate me to start making things. Now I know that I am not a painter or sculptor but a constructor of things, just like I started as a child.”
Artist Statement
A monument for a never failing city
My project is connected to this year’s residency theme of ‘Being Second’. This derives from the position of the city of Tartu in Estonia — it is the second-biggest city of the nation and as such is constantly struggling to find that one thing (those things) that would allow it to overcome the physical constraints and be the best in something else. Being second implies that you never have to worry to lose your status. Yes, you can become third or fourth or any other number. But you don’t have to defend the first position. So you can try and try and actually never fail because you are not seen as first. You don’t depend on the other (city) to be second. It is just the first (city) that is very dependent on the other to be first. Therefore Tartu will never fail. It deserves a monument (well during the residency a scale model) for a city that never fails.
Selected Exhibitions
2016
Paradise Shift, Punt WG, Amsterdam
2015
Chinese Everywherism, Da Wang, Shenzhen, China (solo)
Inkijk, Amsterdam (solo)
2014
Korean success, Gyeonggi Creation Center, Korea (solo)
Galerie Witteveen, Amsterdam
Kramergasse, Landshut, Germany
Schok, Schoorl
Fort Abcoude, Abcoude
Atelierhaus, Aachen, Germany
2013
Galerie Witteveen, Amsterdam
Down the Rabbit Hole, Lichtfabriek, Haarlem
ABC Treehouse, Amsterdam
Fort Abcoude, Abcoude
Graduation show, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam
Kapellhaus, Baku, Azerbaijan
2012
Si.Si.Spex(2), Amsterdam
Moved Winds, Wolfhagen, Germany
Global Village, Sully, Burgundy, France
Schoolplay, Amsterdam
Previous Works
Small Talk Starters Kit (2016)
Chinese Everywherism
Wondering why Chinese people and Chinese products are everywhere I found the notion of Guanxi, that can be easily translated as relationship or connection. Though there is also a lot more (confusion) about it as being an ‘untranslatable’ word, an important feature to understand Chinese society and the opposite of how relationships in the western world functions. “So is it guanxi that makes that China is everywhere? Without trying to find an answer, I decided to make my own connected systems, attempting to create my own myth about guanxi.”
(created in 2015 during a residency at Da Wang, Shenzhen, China)
Chinese Everywherism – Webbing Guanxi
Chinese Everywherism – Puzzling with Guanxi’s
Burberized Czech Hedgehog (antitank obstacle)
An open life-size model of a czech hedgehog (obstacles to block tanks). The 16 color combinations of the Burberry Tartan pattern are translated into symbols. Doming stickers are put on the painted color combinations.
2015
Burberized Czech Hedgehog (2015)
Equestrian statue – Divided, boxed and placed in its own pedestal
A life-size classical equestrian statue is divided in 20 parts. These 20 parts are boxed. The 20 boxes are placed like a pedestal. Lines are drawn that indicate the edges of the boxes within the frame of the pedestal. Medals with a description of the content of the box indicate the place of the box.
2013
Equestrian Statue (2013)
More about Pieter Joost Bruyniks: http://www.pjbruyniks.nl/