Lucky Charm (studio David Hammons)

Lucky Charm (studio David Hammons) (2014) is part of BerendStrik's ambitious long-term series Deciphering the Artist's Mind,which began in 2012 and documents the studios of internationally renownedartists. The work captures the studio of the reclusive American artist DavidHammons — famed for his body prints made from oily materials and his intenselyprivate practice.

As Jack Tilton Gallery describes: "Strik has photographed studios ofwell-known modern and contemporary artists, such as Marcel Duchamp, JacksonPollock, Martha Rosler, and David Hammons, and then stitched colorful materialsinto enlarged prints of the photographic images."

The project began when Strik visited the former Manhattan studio of MarcelDuchamp, where the artist had worked in secret from 1945 to 1966 on his finalmajor work, Etant donnés. What Strik found was a space now used as anoffice — "an architectural space whose changed use nevertheless retainedmemory, thoughts, ideas and visions."

For the Hammons studio, Strik's photograph captures the artist's closed,weathered door — "implying both the artist's attitude towards his audienceand his relationship to worn, found materials." By stitching into thisimage, Strik creates a dialogue between his own practice and Hammons's — twoartists sharing a preoccupation with material transformation.

The series is documented in a comprehensive book published by Mercatorfonds(2020), designed by Irma Boom, with texts by Marja Bloem exploring Strik'sstudio visits. The book investigates "the myth of the artist's studio, thehistorically privileged space of artistic creativity and the impossibility ofaccessing an artist's thought processes."

Sources: JackTilton Gallery · Mercatorfonds · Fons Welters

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