Lucky Charm (studio David Hammons)

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

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

The project began when Strik visited the former Manhattan studio of Marcel Duchamp, where the artist had worked in secret from 1945 to 1966 on his final major work, Etant donnés. What Strik found was a space now used as an office — "an architectural space whose changed use nevertheless retained memory, 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 audience and his relationship to worn, found materials." By stitching into this image, Strik creates a dialogue between his own practice and Hammons's — two artists 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's studio visits. The book investigates "the myth of the artist's studio, the historically privileged space of artistic creativity and the impossibility of accessing an artist's thought processes."

Sources: Jack Tilton Gallery · Mercatorfonds · Fons Welters