AMSTERDAM.- Foam presents Love Shit, the first solo exhibition by the Dutch-Polish artist Verena Blok. In this exhibition, Blok explores the complexity of reproduction and everything that comes with it: pregnancy, abortion, childhood, care, intimacy, health, and reproductive rights. At a time when women’s rights, including access to safe abortion, are under growing pressure worldwide, Love Shit emphasises the importance of nuance, complexity, and a multiplicity of voices.
Love Shit emerged from Blok’s simultaneous experiences of her own pregnancy and her work at a Dutch abortion clinic. Her experiences in the clinic made a profound impression and raised urgent questions about freedom of choice and autonomy over the female body. Over a period of two and a half years, Blok photographed women at different stages of pregnancy, children, and couples in several countries. These portraits form the foundation of the exhibition, combined with abstract imagery and diary fragments written by the artist during her time working in the abortion clinic. From this personal point of view, Blok shows how individual experiences surrounding reproduction are inextricably linked to broader social and political structures.
The title Love Shit refers to the messy reality of reproduction, in which childlike playfulness, bodily transformation, and contradictory emotions are intertwined. Although birth, pregnancy, care, and intimacy are fundamental to the cycle of life, these experiences are still often surrounded by taboos and stigma. With an empathetic and socially critical gaze, Blok shows that reproduction is not only about love and happiness, but also about vulnerability, grief, tension, and discomfort.
About the artist
Verena Blok’s (1990) reflects a strong interest in personal narratives and the impact of cultural and political forces on individual lives. Using an analogue 35mm camera, she embeds herself within specific contexts and builds long-term relationships with her protagonists. Her practice is shaped in part by her Dutch-Polish background, and the resulting awareness of shifting ideologies between East and West. In dreamlike settings, often with a cinematic quality, Blok deliberately explores discomfort within socially charged themes such as the performativity of gender and hypermasculinity, coming of age, nationalism, and more recently abortion and reproductive rights. Her projects take shape as books, photographic works, and short films.
Blok earned a Master’s degree in Photography from AKV St. Joost and a Bachelor’s degree from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. From 2020 to 2022, she was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Dutch National Art Collection (Rijksoverheid).
