Atelier Van Lieshout Opens Sculpture Park at Château Saint-Maur in Saint-Tropez

Atelier Van Lieshout, the Dutch studio founded by Joep van Lieshout, has inaugurated a sculpture park in the gardens of Château Saint-Maur in Saint-Tropez, open throughout summer 2022. Titled "Utopia," the park features ten works, including Buffel (2011), The Philosopher (2017), Tree of Life (2016), and the eponymous Utopia (2020). The project is co-curated by Alessandro Possati and Natalie Kovacs, and is part of the second edition of MINIMO, an annual initiative organized by Ars Belga at the Château in collaboration with Saatchi Yates, Aktis Gallery, and Galleria C1760. It is presented by Zuecca Projects, a Venetian organization founded by Possati in 2011, which has worked with artists such as Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Estate, Hermann Nitsch, and Daniel Richter. Possati noted that Zuecca previously collaborated with van Lieshout about ten years ago for the Architecture Biennale, presenting the controversial "SlaveCity." The outdoor sculptures are juxtaposed with works inside the castle's cellars, including the iconic Family (2007). Van Lieshout, who has used the name Atelier Van Lieshout since 1995 to "undermine the myth of artistic genius," creates multidisciplinary works blending art, design, and architecture with ecological and activist themes, such as Women on Waves and Mama-Werner, the latter shown at Documenta 15. His work is held in major museums including MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and Stedelijk, and collected by figures like Brad Pitt.