One of the duos in exhibition Unlimited consists of Hans Bakker and Jitske Bakker. They explain how their collaboration came about and the thinking behind their work.
What happens when you get a visual artist and a composer to create new work together? The answer can now be seen and heard at the Mondrian House in the exhibition Unlimited. To mark Mondrian's 150th birthday, the museum brought together seven visual artists and seven composers and invited them to create new work in pairs.
Sculptural landscapes
Hans and Jitske Bakker (no relatives of each other), decided as early as the kick-off meeting of Project Unlimited that they wanted to work together. Hans Bakker (b. 1945) studied piano, church organ and choral conducting. The Amersfoort-based composer wrote many chamber music works and choral compositions in a style that could be described as postmodernist.
Visual artist Jitske Bakker (1982) is also from Amersfoort. In her studio in Kattenbroek, she draws sculptural landscapes that often take on three-dimensional forms. Hans: 'Jitske's work immediately really appealed to me. It is simultaneously soft and powerful.'
Exposure
During several meetings, the philosophically minded Hans and the more intuitively working Jitske explored each other's world of ideas and working methods. Jitske: 'Via the theme Unlimited, we arrived at 'Exposure' as a joint working theme: exposure to binding and pulling apart forces. In my case, a triptych of three large, drawings with different textures emerged, breathing, bulging and seeming to want to escape from their frame. This suggestion is reinforced by the composition Hans wrote.' Hans: 'Jitske's initial sketches gave me a creative impulse that led to my composition 'Exposure'. I think I would never have written this piece like this without the inspiring contacts with Jitske. I experienced our collaboration as a great process.' Jitske: 'It was indeed an exciting and enriching process, in which we both looked beyond the boundaries of our own discipline and came to new insights and ideas.'
Exhibition Unlimited is on display at the Mondrian House until 5 March 2023.
