Lot 77: WOUT BERGER (b.1941 Dutch)

WOUT BERGER (b.1941 Dutch)
Greenhouse with Ferns, 2001
oversized chromogenic print
signed, titled, dated and numbered '2/3' in ink on backing board
47 x 59in. (120 x 150cm.)

Van Kranendonk (ed.), Zand Water Veen -- Harena Aqua Palus [Sand Water Peat], De Verbeelding, 2001, p.14, titled 'Zevenhoven' (fig.F); Gierstberg (ed.), Dutch Dare: Contemporary Photography from the Netherlands, NAi, 2006, p.22 (fig.D); Van den Heuvel & Metz, Nature as Artifice: New Dutch Landscape in Photography and Video Art, NAi, 2008, p.45 (fig.E).

DISTINCTIVELY DUTCH
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Artist's Resale Right ("droit de Suite"). If the Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer also agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
This work is number 2 from the sold-out edition of 3 + 1 AP.

Juxtaposing the rigid grid of a sprawling hot-house with flourishing hanging plants, Berger's Greenhouse with Ferns, is a brilliant study of colour and light as found in the highly automated agriculture industry of Holland. As part of the larger government-commissioned 2000 project (and subsequent book) Zand, Water, Veen: Harena, Aqua, Palus, Berger was one of four artists assigned to photograph the beach, pond areas and peat meadow district of Holland in an effort to not only '"catch" the landscape, but also bring into the picture all the facets of the area's identity.' (p.89) Berger's verdant image is a meticulous inventory of this unique environment, illuminating the contrast between thriving nature and austere man-made architecture.

Berger's works have been exhibited widely in Europe and the US, recently in the exhibition Ecotopia at the International Center for Photography, New York and are held in private, corporate and institutional collections, including Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; and LaSalle National Bank, Chicago. He has published numerous books and received government and private commissions to photograph the landscape of the Netherlands. He lives and works in Vitdam.