Nature as Artifice

The expression "Dutch landscape" continues to evoke painterly traditions of unspoiled and idyllic farmland, but like any other country, the Netherlands has altered radically over the last century, and today enjoys international renown for its hi-tech cultivation and reshaping of the landscape. Since the 1980s, a number of outstanding landscape photographers and video artists have been taking this artificial character of the Dutch landscape as a point of departure for their work, focusing on motorways, railways and the recently created landscape of symmetrical polders, greenhouses, business parks and suburban residential districts. Nature as Artifice brings this group together officially for the first time, with work by Hans Aarsman, Jannes Linders, Wout Berger, Henze Boekhout, Edwin Zwakman, Theo Baart, Cary Markerink, Hans van der Meer, Marnix Goossens, Driessens/ Verstappen, Hans Werlemann, Gert Jan Kocken, Bas Princen, Gábor Ösz, Gerco de Ruijter and Frank van der Salm.