The End of Fear - Barbara Visser Remco de Vries 17-03-2020
Reaction / review / comment on the documentary I’ve been watching for about 10 minutes now and I don’t really get the point yet. Most of these Dutch documentaries are monotonous of form which I am not really a huge fan of, the pace is too low in my opinion. 15:20 I just watched the first witness saying how she saw the painting. Now these are the things I like to see. People who were there at the time when it happened, she remembered vividly what happened that day and was clearly in a state of shock. 17:44 Niels Wouters is intrigued by the knife attack. I think it’s funny that he is talking about the cut not being right in the golden ratio. It’s interesting to hear someone talking about the fact that the crime done to that painting makes it interesting. We shouldn’t encourage people to demolish art works, but it’s interesting when it happens. I think so too, not really sure why though. Oh she got to talk to G.J. van Bladeren, he demolished the artwork. Interesting to hear a bit from him. I also wonder if the voice recordings we hear are real or a reconstruction. I’ve come to the conclusion that the documentary doesn’t give any answers but only asks questions. So I think Barbara Vissers wants us, the watchers to answer the questions ourselves. The documentary invites you to form your own opinion about it all. The documentary makes clear that all the questions asked are still relevant today. People are still talking about it. Was the restoration done right? Should they have restored it? I still think it’s monotonous and a tad slow. I feel the emotion of the creator Renske van Enckevort. You put so much time and energy into creating something and at the end people come by and have their opinions ready without knowing what that kind of works means to me. That hit me the hardest of the whole documentary. I also watched the interview where Chris Kijne talks to Barbara Visser and I like that she explained why she didn’t call the restorer a bad guy or the attacker a crazy guy. Those are stereotypes and there is more to it. I like the way she worked, like I said before I didn’t like the pace of the documentary but I do like the way she went to work. She collected so much archival footage. I also like the fact that she is still working on ideas around the project. Even though the docu is finished she feels like she still can do something with it, which is the same feeling I have myself when I finish a project at school I often feel like it isn’t completely finished.
For who do I make my work? This is a very difficult question to ask, because I am not really certain about this. First of all I think it’s important to say that I make my work for me. I make something because I believe it’s interesting to make, if it wasn’t interesting to begin with I wouldn’t make it. So I make it for me. But am I the only one? I don’t think so. But I believe it could be different with every body of work you make. Right now I create something that asks a lot of peoples feelings, it isn’t a factual piece of work, but if it were to be a factual piece of work I think it is meant for a whole different group of people. I’d like to be a story teller, maybe a bit of a teacher at some points. But I don’t want my work to be completely factual. It should tell a story as well. Who “owns” my work and why? Factually all works belong to me. Even when I sell works to other people or a museum, it still belongs to me. It’s my intellectual property. But in the end it’s up to people what they do with it. I can sell it to individuals or museums and give it a set of rules what they can or cannot do with my works, but I can’t watch that all my life. If they decide they want to change something it’s up to them. Even if they don’t change anything, people form their own opinions about the works and that way it becomes theirs as well. Music artists often say they deliver a baby, but once it’s out there it doesn’t solely belong to them anymore, it belongs to the people as well, and I agree on that. But I do believe we have to be careful to share our opinions, of course you can say my works don’t belong in a museum or that it’s ugly and a waste of time, but now you’re also becoming increasingly personal to the creator. I vastly belief we should be careful with those careless opinions, but be honest nonetheless.