Photography: Niels De Vries
My interdisciplinary work is driven by politics, the culture of silence, and sexuality. I create large-scale drawings that I'm using for making a film. I'm currently making: a hybrid feature film, "IJdel Licht," about the war years of the renowned Dutch poet and painter Lucebert. Under the pressure of the postwar zeitgeist, Lucebert remained silent about his Nazi sympathies. In the initial phase, the working title was "Hé Blauwtje" (Hey little Blue), and the goal was a short animation as a war film. I assembled a film team with producer and filmmaker Digna Sinke (SNG Film), and to this day, Sinke advises and I've added experts to the team. At regular intervals and in various locations, I present work-in-progress stages of the film project with a screening, jazz concert, poetry reading, and visual art.
To raise my political profile with my work, I began a project in 2013 called "To Draw Politically." In 2016, Jelle Bouwhuis wrote the important essay "Madame Mao" about my work. It was included as an appendix to my artist's book "Innocent" and was removed in China due to censorship. Madame Mao was silenced, and I created my series of large drawings/watercolors during a nine-month residency in Chongqing (2014/15).
My erotic poetry films Pygmalion's Bride (2016) and Apollo's Song (2022) are feminist in tone, the former through the poem, the latter through the plot. The theme of my controversial performance Qizi at the Chinese European Art Centre (CEAC, 2018) dealt with sexually transgressive behavior. My feminist perspective on male domination began in adolescence. I called my mother a Dolle Mina, and I have always wanted to strengthen the female gender, including within myself. Artist and writer Hanne Hagenaars wrote in depth about The Mother in Innocent: “Pedro Bakker makes drawings about his mother, about the drama that occurred in his youth, because it is impossible not to speak about that.” Around my mother, my family, in particular, had created a suffocating culture of silence, which kept my mother silent about her TBS sentence until I was an adult. To leave that oppressive feeling of shame behind, I dedicated the series of large drawings, Burnt Home, to my mother during my Master's in Artistic Research (2009). Is Lucebert's silence comparable to my mother's?
Pedro Bakker (1952) lives and works in Friesland (NL). He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Drawing) and at the University of Amsterdam (Philosophy). At first he was a painter and alternately a writer upon art. In 2006 his participation in an existentialist retreat/Militant Bourgeois changed his artistic attitude, from painting a meaningless subject to drawing an autobiographical theme. In 2010 he graduated from the University of Amsterdam (MA Artistic Research) with a solo show MUM at W139, Amsterdam. After a successful solo exhibition Burnt Home at Witzenhausen Gallery in New York, Pedro Bakker drew his series L'Éternel Retour. Ma Mère et Georges B. (1943). The narrative and cinematic character of his drawings led to his first steps in the field of animation and screenwriting. Large coloured drawings have been shown internationally and he was for a long time artist-in-residence in big cities in China. In 2016 and in 2021, he received the 4-year grant Proven Talent (Established Artist) from the Mondriaan Fund to work on his, long term, projects. In 2017 he was awarded with the Gerrit Benner Prize and had a solo show in the Fries Museum. Many of his works are in the collection of the Fries Museum. Pedro Bakker did many presentations, performances, screenings and lectures in The Netherlands and China.
My erotic poetry films Pygmalion's Bride (2016) and Apollo's Song (2022) are feminist in tone, the former through the poem, the latter through the plot. The theme of my controversial performance Qizi at the Chinese European Art Centre (CEAC, 2018) dealt with sexually transgressive behavior. My feminist perspective on male domination began in adolescence. I called my mother a Dolle Mina, and I have always wanted to strengthen the female gender, including within myself. Artist and writer Hanne Hagenaars wrote in depth about The Mother in Innocent: “Pedro Bakker makes drawings about his mother, about the drama that occurred in his youth, because it is impossible not to speak about that.” Around my mother, my family, in particular, had created a suffocating culture of silence, which kept my mother silent about her TBS sentence until I was an adult. To leave that oppressive feeling of shame behind, I dedicated the series of large drawings, Burnt Home, to my mother during my Master's in Artistic Research (2009). Is Lucebert's silence comparable to my mother's?
Pedro Bakker (1952) lives and works in Friesland (NL). He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Drawing) and at the University of Amsterdam (Philosophy). At first he was a painter and alternately a writer upon art. In 2006 his participation in an existentialist retreat/Militant Bourgeois changed his artistic attitude, from painting a meaningless subject to drawing an autobiographical theme. In 2010 he graduated from the University of Amsterdam (MA Artistic Research) with a solo show MUM at W139, Amsterdam. After a successful solo exhibition Burnt Home at Witzenhausen Gallery in New York, Pedro Bakker drew his series L'Éternel Retour. Ma Mère et Georges B. (1943). The narrative and cinematic character of his drawings led to his first steps in the field of animation and screenwriting. Large coloured drawings have been shown internationally and he was for a long time artist-in-residence in big cities in China. In 2016 and in 2021, he received the 4-year grant Proven Talent (Established Artist) from the Mondriaan Fund to work on his, long term, projects. In 2017 he was awarded with the Gerrit Benner Prize and had a solo show in the Fries Museum. Many of his works are in the collection of the Fries Museum. Pedro Bakker did many presentations, performances, screenings and lectures in The Netherlands and China.