Balkonschetsen 1980

Curator: Standing before us is Harrie A. Gerritz’s “Balkonschetsen,” created around 1980. It’s a screenprint—a print—from the Rijksmuseum's collection. The geometric, almost childish simplicity immediately strikes me. It's like a flattened, abstract stage set. Editor: It does feel strangely detached, doesn’t it? As if Gerritz is offering a commentary on representation itself. I see it hinting at modern anxieties, almost like looking at landscape through mass media, processed and mediated by commerce and design. The pastoral ideal—is it truly accessible, or just another product for consumption? Curator: Absolutely. Look at how the images are constructed. The crisp lines of the geometric frame sharply contrast with the slightly less precise shapes within, created by layers of colour. Consider how Gerritz utilizes screen printing, typically a commercial technique, for landscape imagery. It asks a critical question about artistic practice and labour. Editor: And notice how it’s presented. Each "snapshot" seems deliberately contained and compartmentalized – that suggests the ways landscapes are often marketed to us as pristine, packaged experiences, removed from ecological complexities and labour realities of rural life. The floating squares seem particularly intentional, calling our attention to that packaged element of constructed landscapes. Curator: A vital point. Gerritz is keenly aware of his materials, pushing the boundary between fine art printmaking and graphic design, challenging any notions of artistic elitism by using techniques found in mass production to discuss idealized rural images. The subtle imperfections add depth and invite reflection on materiality and creation itself. Editor: Exactly! The framing device even mirrors looking out over a balcony. Do we, living in increasingly urbanized spaces, really *see* landscape? Or are we forever relegated to consuming impressions filtered by power structures – social, economic, historical, environmental – leaving us only able to produce these sketched impressions? It’s an intersection of identity, environment, and social experience. Curator: So, "Balkonschetsen" reveals Gerritz as both artist and artisan, cleverly using those flat expanses of colour to comment on process and medium itself. A blend of critique and reverence. Editor: Yes. Ultimately, it prompts us to reconsider not just *how* we look, but *what* perspectives shape that view. An engagement in both visual and social realms that feels urgent.