For the fourth time we invited young artists to create new work for our festival. Since last year we collaborate together with bkkc on a shared exhibition by artists that graduated not yet, or less than 5 years ago at a Brabant art academy. For the first time we invited artists to submit themselves for New Jacks 4.0.  Of all these submission 5 artists were selected, they will work with the theme: “You are Incubate”. Among the selected artists is Erik van Liere, we asked several question to get to know him better.

Which things/places inspire you?
That depends. It could be almost anything and nothing at the same time. By that I mean that it’s hard to think that inspiration is something that is attached to a certain object or place. Al tough I have always appreciated the dutch romantic landscapes.

What are your idols and why?
This might be a cliché to say, but I am not an adept of any particular artist. Than I could just as well not make art. But I have seen a lot of good exhibitions over the past years. In dOCUMENTA 13 there was this exhibition from the Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov. Who made this work about his ‘forgotten’ childhood ambitions. As a kid he wanted to be a knight and a drummer in a rock band, this sounds almost to stupid to make a work of art about, but the way he can compose humor, irony, poetry, in relation to fundamental human conditions is just brilliant.

Do you know when you wanted to be an artist?
There was no light-bulb, as a kid I never really saw a lot of art, although we had this reproduction of Duhrer’s hare.  I made a lot of drawings but it never occurred to me that one could make a living out of it.

what are you showing at New Jacks 4.0 ?
I’m showing part of a project; At the dawn of fall, non-economic space, which contains series of analogue black and white photographs of old sheds on the country side, organized on concrete plates.

I had this idea for more than a year now, and it started when I was looking trough a book of old photographs of the place I used to live. I grew up in the countryside and the photos showed the fields and the farm I grew up on. A lot of things where still the same as if they were consealed by a time capsule.

But in the past (on the photos) there where a ‘lot’ of tree’s in the pasture, they are all gone now.

Are you looking for a particular reaction from the audience?

No…

That’s a shot for open goal.

The word reaction sounds maybe too active, and while there are always reactions they are also really subjective in a lot of cases. Once I heard this story from an artist, whom I consider a good one,  and she made a photo of a horse and you could see right a way that this photo was not a photo that showed you the horse as it was. The photo was taken at night and you could see the flash of  the camera, this photo also had a ‘strange’ angle.

So this woman at an exhibition said she liked the photograph but that it was a pity you couldn’t see the head of the horse. Without considering any other aspect of this photo.

I also know that nobody just makes something out of the blue, there is always something more to it.

Have you seen previous New Jacks exhibitions? What did you like the most there
All time favorite (till now) Tijl Orlando Frijns, 2011

The New Jacks 4.0 exhibition will be open from Thursday September 6th to September 30th at bkkc / Ticket and info center and features work by Jordy Koevoets, Petra van Noort, Angela de Weijer, Robert Lombarts and Erik van Liere.