Concentrating on ideas of time, place and reality, the work of artist Simon van Til (1985, The Netherlands) brings forth reflexive views on the outside world in relation to representation through photography. Working across photography and sculpture, Van Til's practice brings together precise perspectives on the physical, visible world and self-reflexive relations to the meaning, means and history of image-making, interwoven with and processed through the rudi- mentary nature, the methods and the history of the medium of photography, to reflect on a world being reflected back upon itself and to reflect on being in the world. Earlier works have paralleled photographic exposure and duration to circumstances of natural light and time, having been photographed at the speed of light, during nighttime and by moonlight. Other works focused in- stead on objects that have moved through time, objects of which their understanding has changed over time. Most recent works centre on the optical principle of the camera obscura, understood as a natural, omnipresent aspect of the world itself, to look at the nature of repre- sentation in itself.

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Camera, 2023 cast bronze, cast from a pre-Columbian double-chambered vessel attributed to Chimú culture, ca AD 900- 1470, fitted with two Roman coins, ca. AD 69-79 and AD 81-96 with on each reverse a depiction of Roman Goddess Fides. 25x15x12 cm.
details of Camera, 2023 cast bronze, 25x15x12 cm.
Camera is a bronze cast from a ceramic pre-Columbian vessel, attributed to Chimú culture, dated between AD 900-1470. The double-chambered vessel in the shape of two jaguars was once a ritual object that supported the crossing to an afterlife as burial gift. Cast with both its openings covered by two ancient Roman coins, defaced by having drilled pinhole apertures at their centres, the ceremonial vessel that was once lifted from the darkness of a grave is now repurposed as an optical instrument. Made up of artefacts made by two ancient civilizations separated by geography and moment in time, this cast bronze sculpture accumulates and amalgamates the past by reusing and repurposing these objects, pragmatically but subversively. Holding two parallel representations of the visible world as a double camera obscura, this sculpture is positioned in between existing reality and its immaterial representation, life and death.
House of the Orchard, 2023 photogram made from cherry wood veneer, silver gelatin print, 40x120 cm. Framed 90x180 cm.
An ancient Roman Pompeiian villa, the House of the Orchard is known for its frescos that adorn the walls of two bedroom spaces, offering views onto an orchard through life-like representation. This multi-part work looks at the imitation of nature and early history of Western painting through the historical beginning of photography in the form of the photogram. These lush views are however starkly reduced to the painted pergola panels that circumscribe the blue bedroom. The panels are each copied as photograms by exposing latticed pieces of cherry wood veneer on b/w paper, resulting in an image of a lattice frame- work on a black ground, identical to the original painted representations. House of the Orchard, 2023 photogram made from cherry wood veneer, silver gelatin print, 40x80 cm. Framed 90x140 cm.
An identical set of photograms replaces the wood veneer with a lattice of cut cherry tree leaves, conflating orchard and pergola into one image. detail of House of the Orchard, 2023 photogram made from cherry tree leaves, silver gelatin print, 40x80 cm. Framed 90x140 cm.
	Template made of cut and pasted, dried cherry tree leaves, used for making photograms in negative on b/w silver gelatin paper, 2023
House of the Orchard, 2023 photogram made from cherry tree leaves, silver gelatin print, 40x80 cm. Framed 90x140 cm.
House of the Orchard, 2023 photogram made from cherry wood veneer, silver gelatin print, 40x120 cm. Framed 90x180 cm.
Installation views of Back to the Future Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam January 19 - March 28, 2018 Traveled to C/O Berlin, Amerika-Haus, Berlin (DE) September 29 - December 1, 2018 Traveled to Mai Mano Haz, Hungarian House of Photography, Budapest (HU) February 1 - March 17, 2019 The traveling exhibition Back to the Future, the 19th century in the 21st century, paired 19th-century photography with contemporary practices, drawing parallels in motifs, methods and means.
Chimú Suite, 2015-2018, six silver gelatin contact prints, each 10x12,5 cm. Framed 46x52 cm.
	Detail of Chimú Suite, 2015-2018
Chimú Suite is made up of six photographs, presenting a group of six pre-Columbian Chimú burial vessels. Photographed inside a darkened tent with a small hole in the top, the objects were lit by daylight during exposures that lasted up to several hours, gradually appearing from the dark- ness. Yet, as a result of accidental double exposures on already exposed film, the artefacts almost dis- appear from the pictures instead. Brought forth by a civilization long lost, these vessels persist, to continue to exist, but remain perpetually elusive. detail of Chimú Suite, 2015-2018, six silver gelatin contact prints, each 10x12,5 cm. Framed 46x52 cm.
Installation views of Back to the Future, the 19th century in the 21st century, C/O Berlin, Amerika-Haus, Berlin (DE) 2018 Works were shown alongside 19th-century albumen prints by Stephen Thompson that document pre-Columbian vessels from the British Museum, photographed in the 1870's.
Current and Equivalent, 2018 three ritual pre-Columbian Chimú burial vessels, ca. AD 900-1470, wool blanket, two ash wood elements
	Installation view of Back to the Future, Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam.
Current and Equivalent is a sculpture informed by notions of displacement and duplication. A small show at an antiquarian's shop in 2015 centered on the removal of six pre-Columbian vessels attributed to Chimú culture, replaced by photographs of the objects. A concurrent exhibition at De Ateliers in Amsterdam then housed the vessels alongside other sculpture. The work Current and Equivalent from 2018 consecutively compressed this installation of disparate objects into a single sculpture, as a form of reproduction. Three vessels had been traded in the meantime, abstract wood objects were reinter- preted.	Untitled, 2015, six pre-Columbian Chimú vessels, this work is no longer extant. Untitled, 2015, oak wood with brass inlay, no longer extant.
Untitled, 2014 chromogenic color print, 24x18 cm. Framed 26x20 cm.
Objects held in the collection of RMO, Royal Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, NL
Installation view of The Rediscovery of the World, Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, September 7, - December 8, 2013
Light over Horizon (sunset to nautical twilight), 2012, chromogenic color print, 149x190 cm. Framed 153x194 cm. The work Light over Horizon (sunset to nautical twilight) shows a seascape photographed with an extended exposure that started at sunset and lasted till nautical twilight (the moment when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon and all natural light has disappeared from the atmosphere). Inherently methodical, this photograph's exposure time ran parallel to the full duration of twilight, as daylight faded into darkness and the visibility of the world slowly diminished, yet the actual exposure ran counter to this decrease, accumulating more light over time due to a gradual increase in aperture, star- ting with the smallest lens opening and ending with the widest.
	Installation view, The Rediscovery of the World, Huis Marseille, 2013
Installation views of Sea Views, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, June 17, - September 17, 2017 Comprising a selection of photographic seascapes, anonymously donated to the collection by a private collector, the exhibition Sea Views included thirteen works, on view in the Philips Wing of the Rijksmuseum.
From and To / Elongated View, 2011 silver gelatin print, 16,5x21 cm. original frame 100x150 cm. This work is photographed with an exposure time corresponding to the time it takes for light to travel from the sun to the Earth, an accurate duration of 8 minutes and 19 seconds. Traveling at the speed of light, an approximate 300.000 km/s, light crosses an average distance of 150.000.000 km. Looking out over an expansive sea, the camera is operated not only as a means to produce an image, but as a device to measure duration and distance.
	Location photograph, From and To / Elongated View, 2011 Installation view, The Rediscovery of the World, Huis Marseille, 2013
Installation view of Pictures from Another Wall, the collection of Huis Marseille at De Pont, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, February 15, - August 23, 2020 Moonlit Disk, 2012 photographed by moonlight, chromogenic print, 160x200 cm. Framed 164x204 cm.
	Location photograph, moonlit, Moonlit Disk, winter 2012
Umbra in Umbra, 2013 photographed by moonlight, silver gelatin print, 52,5x65,3 cm. Framed 110x130 cm. The work Umbra in Umbra was photographed in nighttime, by the light of a full moon, and recorded a shadow that was cast on the dark side of the Earth.
Installation views of When I Give, I Give Myself, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, installed throughout the permanent collection, May 20, 2015 - January 17, 2016
The group exhibition When I Give, I Give Myself at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam put emphasis on the artistic and existential questions that preoccupied Van Gogh, expressed in the more than 800 letters written by Van Gogh, most of them addressed to his brother Theo. Each of the 23 artists and writers in this exhibition was sent a carefully chosen letter by Van Gogh, along with the request for a response, in the form of a work of art, a letter or poem, to forge meaningful links between Van Gogh's ideas and contemporary art and literature. The exhibition, on display alongside Van Gogh's paintings and drawings, was held on the occasion of the commemo- ration of the 125th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's death.	'I took a walk along the seashore one night, on the deserted beach. It wasn't cheerful, but not sad either, it was - beautiful. The sky, a deep blue, was flecked with clouds of a deeper blue than primary blue, an intense cobalt, and with others that were a lighter blue - like the blue whiteness of milky ways. Against the blue background stars twinkled, bright, greenish, white, light pink - brighter, more glittering, more like precious stones than at home - even in Paris. So it seems fair to talk about opals, emeralds, lapis, rubis, sapphires. The sea a very deep ultramarine - the beach a mauvish and pale reddish shade, it seemed to me - with bushes.' Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, on or about Sunday, 3 or Monday, 4 June 1888 (letter 619)
	Untitled, 2015 double exposed photograph, photographed by moonlight, silver gelatin contact print, 10x12,5 cm. Framed 46x52 cm.
Night, 2012 chromogenic print, image 180x140 cm. Framed 220x180 cm. The monochromatic, photographic work Night is the outcome of an exposure that corresponds to the precise duration of night-time, from exact sunset till exact sunrise. The work depicts a clear sky as if it was day, exposed by the last light of evening and the first light of new morning.
Installation views of The Rediscovery of the World, Huis Marseille Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, September 7, - December 8, 2013
© 2023  Simon van Til