Carpenters Workshop Gallery presents ”Bad Ideas for Good Living“, a solo exhibition in London by Rotterdam-based  Atelier Van Lieshout. Opening alongside the publication of a new book by the same name, the show spans the gallery spaces, Prouvé House and Ladbroke Hall’s gardens, as a self-portrait of primal nature and the quest for a better world.

Reflecting the genesis of Atelier Van Lieshout itself, the exhibition draws parallels between humans and nature, reflecting our shared instincts to survive, to dominate and to strive for utopia. 

The process of how humans want to improve and control the world with ingenuity, creativity, sophistication, technology and persistence is one of the key themes for Atelier Van Lieshout. It started with agriculture, followed by the industrial revolution, and now new technologies, like artificial intelligence, genetic manipulation, robotics, and industrial farming. Van Lieshout look at how we push our ethical borders without any real understanding of the long term effects.

Sculptor Joep van Lieshout was born in 1963 in Ravenstein, The Netherlands. He is the progenitor of AVL-ville, a self-sufficient free-state in the port of Rotterdam named after the studio he founded in 1995. For three decades van Lieshout has produced work that straddles art, design, and architecture; sharing recurring themes of systems, power, life, death, and the human individual amidst the greater whole.

Atelier van Lieshout gained international recognition for sculptural installations featuring controversial or sinister nuances. Alongside playful perversion, the work conveys disdain for limitation and longing for freedom. Van Lieshout considers the body to be divine architecture with the viewer invited to interact with manufactured interior spaces resembling internal organs, acting out taboos and wish fulfillment. Atelier Van Lieshout’s projects traverse clean design and non-functional sculptures doubling as habitats, fusing luxury with anarchic independence from conventional living.

Van Lieshout’s works have been included in the Gwangju, Venice, Yokohama, Christchurch, Shanghai and São Paulo biennials. AVL is in part of the permanent collections of public and private institutions such as: FNAC, Paris; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Prada Foundation, Milan; Ludwig Forum, Aachen; Folkwang Museum, Essen; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich.

BAD IDEAS FOR GOOD LIVING
ATELIER VAN LIESHOUT
CARPENTERS WORKSHOP GALLERY
LONDON
14 October 2025 – 14 February 2026
Carpenters Workshop Gallery website

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