Preservation & Presentation of the Moving Image
Pedro Bakker from the Netherlands
Artistic Research
What did you do before starting your Master’s?
In the early eighties, I studied Philosophy (with a specialization in Aesthetics) at the University of Amsterdam. Though that was a long time ago, it seems as if I made conscious choices at the time with a view to the Master's in Artistic Research. Halfway through university, I took an elective course in Art History with Professor Hans Jaffé, who was a prominent figure in those days because he had worked as Head Curator under Director Willem Sandberg at the Stedelijk Museum. At the same time, I took drawing and painting courses at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts. A little late, because I already wanted to become an artist while in grammar school. I left university without graduating to become a self-taught artist.
Why did you choose to do a Master’s in Artistic Research?
As an artist, I actually became an artist researcher avant la lettre: after the painter Toon Verhoef visited my studio a few times, I treated the painting of cows as a major artistic study exploring the question of whether subject matter is important in painting. I called myself the ‘cow philosopher' (borrowed from Vache philosophe, a term coined by 19th-century art critic Théophile Thoré). In 2002 I wrote a philosophical essay about this artistic process entitled Cow Letters. The Master's in Artistic Research was personally, but also historically, just what the doctor ordered. People used to view a combination of academics and art practice as somewhat strange. During my Philosophy study at university, we were taught ‘yesterday's aesthetics'. That was worlds removed from the way art was actually practiced in those days. In addition, there wasn't a professor occupying a chair of Philosophy of Art and Culture at the time.
What is your research project about?
The title of my research is My mother, and as a motto I use a quote from Georges Bataille's posthumous novel Ma mère. The research was triggered by a series of drawings I had made in 2006. At the time, I was staying for just under a week in a primitive, black-painted workman's hut along the Amsterdam ring road. Before and during this week, I made 22 drawings. In that series - which I called Is P. Kiek an artist or not? - I made several drawings representing experiences with my mother. The series was successful: Witzenhausen Gallery exhibited it in 2007 at the Scope Basel fair and the Fries Museum bought it. As a result of this success, I began concentrating more on drawing and had the courage to research a subject as personal as ‘My mother' for my Master's in Artistic Research.
In my current drawings, I make direct or indirect use of tabloid headlines. For the course called Objects of Cultural Analysis, I wrote an essay entitled My mother in The Sun. I also gave a lecture at Buro Leeuwarden on this subject. Buro Leeuwarden offered me a solo exhibition, which is why I locked myself up - immediately following my first semester - for two months in my studio to create new works. At the same time, I took an elective course, the theory of which left its traces in the collages and drawings I made.
What are you doing now?
At the moment I'm working in a studio in the Red Light Art District: in fact, I'm working in a former whorehouse. The first major drawing that I made here will be shown at the exhibition for the final presentation this coming winter. After that, I hope - more experienced thanks to the difficult working circumstances in my current studio - to work as an artist-in-residence in China.