PRESENTATION: Guido van der Werve

Guido van der Werve is a Dutch filmmaker and artist whose work has been exhibited and screened widely, finding recognition in both the art and film world. He is best known for documented performances in which he pushes his body to its physical limits, accompanied by classical musical arrangements, often composed by himself. Among the feats of incredible endurance and peril the artist has performed, standing on the North Pole for 24 hours, completing a 1500 kilometer triathlon, setting himself on fire, being hit by a speeding car, he finds moments of serenity and even banality in each rendition.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Eye Filmmuseum

Over the past two decades Guido van der Werve has amassed an absolutely unique body of work, centred on a personal and philosophical approach to his grand dreams and on a sense of wonderment at the banality of everyday experience. “Palpable Futility” the first retrospective of Van der Werve, featuring a broad selection of his films as well as new work is on show in Eye Filmmuseum. Van der Werve often films his extreme physical exertions, in which he battles with himself. His accomplishments include an epic triathlon in which he swims, cycles and runs between the church in Warsaw where Chopin’s heart is buried and his official grave in Paris, and a twelve-hour ultramarathon around his own house in Finland. The central figure in his films also has to endure extreme cold, fire and loneliness. In the process, we gain insight into an extraordinary and fascinating life. His extreme and exhausting exploits provoke existential questions about the meaning of life and the utter futility of existence. His films combine autobiographical elements with themes such as classical music, endurance sport, chess and nature. Van der Werve, himself a gifted pianist, composes the music for many of his films. His work, depicting a tiny figure surrounded by overwhelming nature, is often associated with Romanticism. But besides extremes and melancholy, the films are sprinkled with dry wit. In “Nummer veertien, home” (2012) Van der Werve follows the journey of his idol Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849). The initial goal of delivering a cup of Polish soil to the composer’s grave at Père-Lachaise in Paris developed into an incredible athletic performance equivalent to a 1500 kilometer triathlon. The artist swam, biked and ran from the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw to Paris, spanning the distance between Chopin’s formal grave and the resting place of his actual heart. Van der Werve’s quest is intertwined with the journey of Alexander the Great, who, like Chopin, also died on foreign soil. Van der Werve transforms romantic historical references into modern-day epics and pressing philosophical questions into sublime experiences. “Nummer zeventien, killing time attempt 1: from the deepest ocean to the highest mountain” (2015) is a two-channel video installation showing Van der Werve in 10-hour performances in which he references two extreme sporting achievements: the climbing of Mount Everest with its peak at 8,848 meters, and the manned descent into the Atlantic Ocean’s Mariana Trench with its deepest point at 11,040 meters. In contrasting these two victories with the domestic setting of both his bathtub and bed, Van der Werve alters these spectacular accomplishments into normalities. Taking these ultimate acts of endurance and transposing them into everyday life confronts the viewer with the feeling that a noteworthy task has been accomplished. The film “Nummer vier, I don’t want to get involved in this. I don’t want to be part of this. Talk me out of it” opens with words, spoken in Dutch and written in English on a black screen: ‘I woke up early and watched the sun rise. I felt it came up just for me.’ Cut to an image of the lonely back of the artist; he is gazing out over a slate-blue sea. Very slowly the camera pans up to the sky; a small plane flies by, dragging behind it a banner emblazoned with the words ‘it was not enough’. Cue the achingly wistful chords of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 1 in B flat minor, performed by the artist. The camera gradually pans down to an image of Van der Werve playing the piece on a slightly out-of-tune upright piano, perched on a pontoon in the middle of a misty lake. When the piece comes to an end, the scene changes to a barge drifting down a river. Gradually the faint strains of Mozart’s Requiem Mass are discernible, and it is apparent that the choir and orchestra performing the piece are actually on the boat. Intimations of death, and more particularly the island of the dead, become overwhelming. Eventually everyone disappears, and we are left with the gentle sounds of wind and birds. Then, without warning, the artist drops from the sky and into the river. In “Nummer acht, everything is going to be alright” (2007), we see the artist walking steadily across the frozen waters, while behind him a looms a vast ship, its prow smashing through the ice, then rearing up like monstrous killer whale. Filmed in long shot, van der Werve seems frail and tiny, forever about to be swallowed by the abyss opening up behind him, forever hearing its great creaks, gulps and rumbles ringing in his ears. The icebreaker, though, lags continually behind, and we get to thinking about the effortlessness of his passage when compared to that of the behemoth to his rear. We might read it as a parable of man’s superiority to machine, until we remember that without the protective shell of the ship, van der Werve would never have been able to reach this inhospitable zone in the first place. This is not an image of man at one with nature, then, but of an excessive survival strategy, both sublime and ridiculous. Van der Werve is currently working on a new film, “Nummer achttien”, prompted by his involvement in a serious traffic accident. Highly autobiographical, the film deals with, among other things, his difficult rehabilitation process.

Photo: Guido van der Werve, Nummer vier, I don’t want to get involved in this. I don’t want to be part of this. Talk me out of it, 2005, Duration: 11’49”, 35mm, Zandvoort, Siitama & Enschede, NL, ourtesy of the artist and GRIMM Amsterdam | New York

Info: Eye Filmmuseum, IJpromenade 1, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 12//2-29/5/2022, Days & Hours: Sun-Thu 10:00-22:00, Fri-Sat 10:00-23:00, www.eyefilm.nl