Sometimes when too many thoughts bubble to the top the best thing to do is drain the dissonance through a good old-fashioned daydreaming sequence—an occurrence that is surely categorized as a rarity in our go-see-do, planning-obsessed, culture.
While some groups encourage this activity-- Modernist Writers, Zen Buddhists, and Campus Stoners-- most people in our culture are constantly thinking ahead. Forecasting. Planning. Forward movement can sometimes stunt true progression Artist Joep van Lieshout has found this statement so true he created a multidisciplinary art practice to best articulate this notion. He named the art form Atelier Van Lieshout to demonstrate that the ideas do not stem solely from his creative brain, but instead are produced by a creative team of artists, designers and architects.
Atelier Van Lieshout or AVL created by Joep Lieshout is more than a collection of chairs, chaise lounges and sofas. His art (called The Fossils) manifests a once only audible social commentary into tangible objects. The pieces in The Fossils are all designed to evoke the feeling of minimized design focused on indigenous creatures of a primitive shape.
The artist describes his designs as: half natural, half man-made. To stir up the musty smells and fiercely independent attitudes of our culture’s past, a nomadic lifestyle, all one must do is sit down and open the rusted gates that lead to imaginative thought.
Each of the pieces "reveals the identity of the pre-historic host but also resemble and may be seen as rocks or volcanic stone." * * * Pause for an eruption of metaphorical exuberance. * * *
And Now: Please seat down. Let your mind wander and your best thoughts, like fossils, form between the dust that had gathered on your brain's imaginative lobe and the warm rush of energy pulsing through your body. And for our more hands-on dreamers: pet that fur!
