Willem Oorebeek — MONOLITH, lettered rock

Dutch artist Willem Oorebeek’s (1953) work is grounded in techniques from the graphic arts. He utilizes different printing processes in a special manner, fully employing the printing procedure’s inherent principles of juxtaposition and stratification in order to explore the themes of repetition, multiplication, seriality and order. Oorebeek is especially interested in how image and language can combine and lead to a unique cross of visibility and legibility. Pictograms often recur in his work.

In his use of graphic art techniques Oorebeek refers to the history of reproduction techniques, from the invention of book printing to Robert Rauschenberg’s flatbed method. At the same time, the content of his works is inspired by the tradition of representation, from landscape painting to advertisement. In this double pursuit, Oorebeek constantly seeks to redefine and revitalize the image.

MONOLITH, lettered rock was Oorebeek’s first large solo-exhibition. For the exhibition Oorebeek created a new series of works in the form of a book and a project in the exhibition spaces of Witte de With.

Both exhibition and book implied a replication of the structural characteristics of Oorebeek’s work. His duplication methods were no longer applied to just individual works; instead, their principles governed the overall presentation of pictures in the exhibition and the book. The pages of the book were generated by pages from Oorebeek’s previous publications, which were reprinted and overlaid to form new images. The book’s temporal structures were spatially expanded in the exhibition. The prints presented on the walls of Witte de With interrelated through the same method of juxtaposition and stratification. Thus, the advertisement images which Oorebeek copied and pasted on the walls highlighted the potential of re-production and re-presentation.