Helmut Smits is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Straightforward, critical and witty, Smits is a ceaseless producer of ideas that comment on society and situations in a frank and often humorous way.
Cropping Reality - Empty advert sign frame, tree stump, found cardboard
To construct this surreal image, I thoughtfully rearranged some items found near each other on the street. Creating a seemingly photoshopped scene naturally.
Bread Mix - white bread, brown bread
Temporary Waterfall - diggers, sea water
Fall - Autumn leaves and dew
Cutouts - A series of naturally occurring branch compositions, clarified by cutting out branches.
Checkered Grass - Approximately 1300 standard concrete slabs were placed on a grass lawn in the Rose Garden in Ulm. Covering exactly half of the grass the paving slabs were positioned in a checkered pattern. After one week all the slabs were removed revealing a beautiful two tone pattern.
This process of grass being obscured from the sun is commonly found in gardens under paddling pools, and in campsites under tents etc. Often frowned upon as ugly, but here the momentary transformation has altered a simple patch of grass into a beautiful living pattern of contrasting squares governed by concrete and sunlight.
Photo by Lorenz Bee
Wood Beam - Standard spruce wood beam 69 x 44 x 210 cm
HD Video (stop motion) 2:39 min
A stop motion video documenting the detail deviations in the wood grain slope of a standard spruce beam. Starting from one end, the animation progresses through the spruce beam in a series of cross sections. Each frame capturing the beam before it is sawn down a fraction at a time. As the animation grows in length the wooden beam diminishes, until the last section is sawn and the spruce beam comes to an end.
The Real Thing - An installation that turns Coca-Cola back into clean drinking water.
Is that brown liquid called Coca-Cola truly ‘The Real Thing’, as the company’s ‘70s’ advertisement slogan had us believe? Taking a critical look at the soft drink, Smits concluded that it is not the flavoring that is ‘real’, but its principal ingredient, water. Coca-Cola is sold and drunk the world over, even in places where clean drinking water is unavailable, despite the fact that it takes three liters of water to produce one liter of Coke. Smits reversed the manufacturing process and distilled Coke to recover pure water. He has us consider for a moment how our mindless consumerism affects the world in which we live.
