Thomas Rentmeister’s work has often been referred to as “dirty Minimalism” due to his unambiguous choice of materials and the way in which their forms become abstract when presented out of context as products rather than works of art. Nutella hazelnut paste, refrigerators, and Penaten cream are arranged and mixed together as if a child had determined their placement and form in the white cubic spaces. In fact, many of the ingredients Rentmeister uses are chosen based on his childhood memories of their smell, color, and consistency. For the artist, the translation of these memories is explicitly part of the artistic and conceptual value of his work. It warrants a sense of humor and allows the work sly references to Minimalism, Color Field painting, and even Dadaism.

For this exhibition in Amsterdam, Rentmeister chose to show work from the past eight years, excluding previous pieces that have focused more on the olfactory sense. The most recent work from 2013 (all works are untitled), the centerpiece of the exhibition, is a canny reference to Conceptual sculpture: A rusted cast-iron rake and a pillow lie heavily on an immaculate, soft white duvet. Its relationship to a work from 2012—wherein a neat row of paper tissues is displayed on the ridge of a stainless-steel sculpture hanging on the wall—is interesting due to a specific similarity. Once again, placing the aesthetic over other sensorial qualities is toyed with in a dialogue with a sculptural complement. Only here the focus of the work stems from the serial quality of the tissues that lie on top of the neutral—and therefore impersonal—horizontal form.

— Huib Haye van der Werf