When I was 11, Sinterklaas (my father) gave me a camera. An Instamatic, with a roll of film in a plastic cassette, a technique that made it possible for everyone to take photographs. That gift set me on the path to the photography club, the Rietveld Academy, becoming an artist and ultimately to this, here. When I returned home from the Sinterklaas celebration (my parents were divorced), my mother immediately called my father. She demanded that he also pay for the development and printing of the photos.
You give a gift and get homework in return. Apparently creating a work of art is sometimes not enough. In addition to interest, surprise or a shared insight about the work, the artist is asked by the viewer what is meant by it, or what the intentions are. Homework. Works of art must at least be accompanied by a sketch of a context, a reference to theoretical and philosophical writings, combined with a life event and some reference works. Here you are.
work
I have been making collages, from every newspaper of every day, since 2017. The playing field is always the same. A newspaper has two sections and three on Saturdays. That’s 13 sections every week and I make 13 works of those, about 680 per year. I tear away parts of pages (like a sculptor chopping away marble) until the combination of photos and illustrations creates an image that I like. I edit the weekly Volkskrant Magazine with a knife, but here too I look for a new image between the pages. I then reuse the scrap material from the newspapers by kneading balls from the scraps soaked in water. I collect the printing ink that is released in a sheet of kitchen paper. Everything stays.
I am an artist returning to work, after a break of 15 years, and somewhat uneasy. In these years, next to and in work, I search for my relationship with the current time. My attitude and outlook developed during the time of Postmodernism. In short: there is no pure truth and no difference between high and low culture. Marcel Duchamp is god and beauty (or whatever) all in the eye of the beholder. With Trademark™ I depicted this through, among other things, the art order form Art on Request and the exhibition The People’s Choice. With Remko Scha I presented the AI computer program Artificial. Authors are other people.
development
It still doesn’t feel like personal expression, the work I make, but it is mine. There is coherence with previous projects, which were usually also endless works. The duration and scope of the work fills me with pleasure. Just like the continuity, which presents itself like seasons. A slow flow. And a concept in progress.
The slow development in my daily actions, tearing the newspaper, intrigues me. At first there were only straight lines. I think it took (I’m not going to look it up) a year or two before I was also allowed to, started to tear at an angle. The embodiment of the discussion within De Stijl: away with Bart van der Leck! Changing the order of the individual pages that make up a newspaper section: another few years later, together with shifting the height of the sheets relative to each other. Apparently the rules of the game evolve at the speed of years. Joep van Lieshout was right when he said that an idea solidifies by repetition.
meaning of life
An archeology of printed media. Over the years, time seeps in and disappears at the same time. What has that experience brought me, besides the repetitive actions, a too slow development and now more than 5000 images in folders, in an Ikea cupboard? The realization that the course of the world is much less important than I think, thought. At the same time it is an attractive maelstrom. With perpetrators and victims, winners and losers, evil and beauty. Death and new life. Fear and joy about what is to come, the consequences of previous decisions and hope for future improvement.
György Konrad wrote: “In response to the question about the meaning of life, every person answers with his or her life history.” I developed a growing sense of compassion in the maelstrom. We are passers-by, lucky or unlucky, subject to chance of the great movements, more than to the results of what we or others do. Poor, poor people.
I have been reading the newspaper for 45 years now, I don’t watch the news on TV or watch YouTube videos. So it could happen that the work made me softer and more skeptical at the same time, at a time when there is not much reason for it. We experience the slow disappearance of paper media, an excellent medium for seeking truth and in any case representing reality. News on social media, with likes and self-righteousness, are becoming the norm. Digital, changeable, influenceable and always accompanied by a personal opinion. Infotainment. And that brings us back to the beginning. Standing still, being silent about things, without a like, a smiley or angry hashtag. An experience without homework.
eberson werk work 