In his lecture, Willem de Rooij discusses concepts of landownership in the Dutch Empire as visualized by Melchior d’Hondecoeter, Jan Weenix and Dirk Valkenburg. The triangular relationship between their works informs De Rooij’s artwork since 17 years, most recently in his installation at the Gemäldegalerie at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna named King Vulture.

Willem de Rooij (*1969, Beverwijk, NL) investigates the production, contextualization and interpretation of images through a variety of media. Appropriations and collaborations inform his method, facilitating research in art history and ethnography. Since 2010 De Rooij has been working on the first oeuvre catalogue on the work of Dirk Valkenburg. It will be launched together with the installation Valkenburg at Centraal Museum Utrecht early 2025. Willem de Rooij tutors at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and is founding director of BPA// Berlin program for artists. Together with Jeroen de Rijke (1970–2006) he represented The Netherlands at the 51st Venice Biennale. He is a recipient of the Baloîse Art Prize, and was a Robert Fulton Fellow at Harvard University and a DAAD fellow in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions were staged at the Gemäldegalerie at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Portikus Frankfurt, IMA Brisbane, and the Jewish Museum, New York. Recent group exhibitions include the BDL Museum, Mumbai, the Hammer Museum Los Angeles, Jakarta Biennale and the Aishti Foundation, Beirut. de Rooij’s work is collected by institutions such as Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, Centre Pompidou in Paris and MOMA in New York.