Berend Strik
Copilot, Voice and Vision
2 November – 21 December
Berend Strik in conversation with Arianne Kamsteeg
In titles of previous works, concepts such as “deciphering”, “redefining” and “exhibiting” recur. What is your objective this time?
The position of the artist is often romanticized and idealized. On the one hand, artists are tasked with addressing today’s complex issues, from climate change to the ethical dilemmas following the corona pandemic. Artists are frequently expected to serve as the lubricant for everything that has been squeaking and creaking for at least twenty years. On the other hand, artists are also meant to maintain a comfortable distance from the world, creating beautiful works that offer distraction. Within this impossible contradiction, I have continued to explore the connection between my work and art history that I sought in my “deciphering” project. Now, however, I am turning my focus to my own practice as an artist.
Deciphering the Artist’s Mind still resonates in this new exhibition, featuring studios of artists from the Western canon such as Michelangelo, Van Gogh, and Appel. When I started this series, I didn’t consider approaching those monumental, iconic artists – they felt so large, too large.
My visit to John Baldessari’s studio in Los Angeles made me see it differently. I was there just before the transport of new work for a solo exhibition, so he was quite tense. In his studio, I saw photos of Giotto’s work, greatly enlarged with text underneath. I thought it was brave of him to take on such a famous artist. But as he said, “At my age, I can do whatever I want, so now I dare to work with Giotto.”
Do you think it works that way for emerging artists too? That when you are young, you have that kind of audacity?
As you advance in your art practice, you begin to let go of more and more questions, desires, and ideas. However, I’m not quite there yet. I’m at a stage where I need to focus on my strengths. There’s a cliché about losing your “childlike” perspective over time, so I’ve decided to revisit the artists who inspired me when I was twelve. Even back then, I knew I wanted to pursue art. I admired those great masters with such innocence. Nowadays, it’s often seen as inappropriate to label someone a “genius,” but I still appreciate the concept of having someone to look up to.
That’s why I find the studios of these artists so interesting. They are like postcards. These artists are so well-known that they’ve become universal, with ideas about them that almost anyone can fill in. And you do so automatically, drawing from your own background.
On the other hand, there is the work of myself as a little boy on that dinghy. In that personal work, you feel that the childlike quality still exists. At the same time, it is a universal image. It’s precisely these small things that are almost the same for everyone. By looking far back into both your own life and art history, you can get much closer to the things you truly find important—those universal themes we all recognize and that connect us to one another.
Is this the first time your youth played such a big role in your work?
Photography has a very specific quality: through the photo, you can see how something was, but you can never fully reach it again. It captures a moment that no longer exists. By stitching on it and sewing velvet onto it, I make it more tangible. I’m playing a game with time, trying to bring out the meaning of that image and all the hidden information as clearly as possible.
That photo of me on the boat, for example. I don’t remember the moment literally, but I do remember the smell, the warmth, the heat radiating from the boat, the scent of Spain, the food, my parents, my father with his little belly and beard. I recognize myself; I know that’s me, but I don’t remember my own presence. It may sound a bit sentimental, but instead, I see my own soul in it. That strange confusion is what interests me – how that memory relates to the image. In another work, I tried to incorporate a photo of my mother in such a way that it becomes almost an universal image. By concealing some parts and highlighting others, I hope it evokes a shared memory, a sort of “oh, my mother” feeling.
Is that something you try to do more often, evoke such a shared memory?
What I always aim for is to allow viewers to bring their own context into the work. Photography is easily recognizable: everyone has photos and is used to looking at them. In the digital age, this has only intensified. In my work, you can see very clearly how it is made, unlike, for example, a painting where you can only guess at the suggestions. In my pieces, you can literally see the stitches, how a shape cut from fabric has been sewn on, or how the stitching varies between coarse and neat. Sewing is such an ancient technique; it’s very recognizable to the brain. Our brains have mirror neurons that link results to movements: splashes to mess-making, cuts to a knife. I believe sewing is one of those movements: it’s a movement deeply embedded in our thinking, going back to the dawn of humanity and the first societies.
The combination of these two factors, photography and stitching, does something interesting to the brain. On one hand, you have the photograph, which feels very personal due to its universality. The photograph is then punctured by the familiar movements of stitching. These elements don’t naturally belong together in our minds, but this “unexpectedness” keeps you looking.
I now relate this more to the feeling that you can’t truly engage with reality. It’s something I’ve only come to realize in the past few years. We live permanently in a thought, a constructed world that is only personally shaped by us up to a certain point. And that’s why the viewer’s role is so important – because in imagination, anything is possible. You can look at a piece and imagine it’s the studio where Michelangelo wandered, or that it’s your mother on that beach, or that you’re the one lying on that boat.
For the artist, the journey of intuition and discovering your own voice is quite similar; it’s essential to hold onto it. You learn this by observing the world around you and recognizing your unique voice. It requires careful listening.
Over time, the back of your works began to play a more prominent role. How did this development come about?
This development was very intuitive. The backs of my works are often very beautiful, which I initially found very frustrating. The front is very dominant, entirely determined by me. I imposed my will there. But then there’s the back, which is all about chance. And then you’re dealing with the fact that the back is so beautiful because it is so free. It emerged on its own, without any pressure. Working with that instead of suppressing it was purely about following my intuition.
For the gallery, the act of physically turning the works around remains time consuming. But I really prefer to show both sides. I like to compare it to people; you only ever know a part of someone. It’s a choice to get to know someone better, to see a different side of them. At the same time, there’s always something hidden from us, which I find quite poetic.
When I read your interviews, you are quite firm in your use of the words “stitching” and “sewing”, while avoiding “embroidery”. In one of the works, Portret, we do see embroidered details of little figures with wings. How did those come to be?
That’s quite a funny story. I started this work a long time ago, right at the beginning of my career. Mario Merz asked me during the setup of an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam if I wanted to create a portrait of the woman who was his intern at the time. But as often happens, the exhibition was completed, I lost contact, and I never finished the work. It sat in my storage for about thirty years, and I recently came across it during a big cleanup. I thought it would be nice to finish it.
For this work, I restored my old sewing machine to add extra layers of stitching. I had already embroidered those little figures, which I call “monsters”, back in 1994. I actually let go of embroidery right after that. So in that sense, they are indeed an exception in my work. With the additional stitching, I explored whether I could give those monsters an extra layer of meaning. I investigated how I can apply that technique from the beginning of my career in a different way. So, in a sense, this work has become a cross-section of my thirty-year career – from the first stitches that I had added across the full width of my drawings in Hungary to a more balanced version on a thirty-year-old photograph.
Finally, I’d like to discuss the title of your exhibition. At first, I thought it hinted at traveling, driving, first mate and second mate, especially with the boats in this new series of works. Yesterday, I discovered it’s also the title of Microsoft’s new Artificial Intelligence.
First and foremost, it’s a nod to the viewer, who is the co-pilot of the artwork. After all, without a viewer, an artwork does not exist. It must be seen and interpreted. As a participant, you engage with an artwork, and in doing so, you affirm its existence. Afterwards, you might ask yourself, “What did I think of it?” By presenting an artwork, you’re essentially inviting that very question: “What are your thoughts? What is your experience?”.
While AI is often viewed as the future and something that will revolutionize everything, I see it more as a tool rather than a solution. It serves as a co-pilot in the creative process. However, the true essence of artistry – the artistic spirit – will always remain.
