For his project “Storage for Distorted Matter” (2008 – ongoing), Loek Grootjans is collecting almost anything, bottles with samples of the great masters, his own filth, the ground Vincent van Gogh was born on, 21st-century masterpieces that cannot be made, the water that people washed up in on the Vlieland shore, the light Piet Mondrian first saw when he entered Domburg… 

But also something as simple as his own dust, a sublimated version of which is incorporated in his work The Remembering Department as part of his S.M.A.K. solo exhibition of 2010, and which led to its inclusion in the museum collection.

The Liquid Files
Over two hundred bottles of liquids, accompanied by large petri dishes containing samples of all sorts of things. Traces of Pasolini, the remains of a kiss from Broodthaers’ widow, the olives from Leonardo da Vinci’s olive grove, salt crystals from the sea at Domburg, cleaning residue from Brodski’s grave …