Marcel

Marcel (2025) by Berend Strik takes as its subject a single first name — suggesting a portrait, a person, an individual identified simply by their given name.

Marcel is also the name of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), the most influential artist of the 20th century, who transformed art by asking fundamental questions about what art is and can be. If this work references Duchamp, it positions Strik's own practice in relation to that legacy.

Duchamp's final major work, Etant donnés, was created in secret over 20 years in a New York studio — a work that could only be seen through a peephole. Strik's Deciphering the Artist's Mind series included a visit to this very studio.

The single name "Marcel" — without surname, without title — is intimate and direct, addressing the viewer as if to say: you know who I mean. This intimacy is characteristic of Strik's approach to portraiture.

Sources: Galerie Fons Welters