Arnoud Holleman

Amsterdam — Friday 29 March, 2024
nl / en

Bert Luttjeboer

drawing, photo, text


Portrait of Bert Luttjeboer (1960 - 1995). Dated 1992, re-worked in 2005. Exhibitions: De Hallen (Haarlem, 2005) Artpace (San Antonio, 2006)

Price on request


Full text:
That summer I was into the differences and parallels between drawing and photography. I saw myself as a human camera and tried to copy photos as precisely as possible. I was intrigued by the fact that I had to work for hours or days or weeks on end and would still fail to come anywhere close to what the camera had seen in a split second. One night, after a long day of working with minute precision and concentration, I went out to a bar and ran into Bert. He consumed me with his eyes, and we started what I would later refer to as a summer affair. Bert Luttjeboer was an opera singer who would play the piano in the mornings when I was still in bed and sing 'E lucevan le stelle'. One day, when he came home from a publicity photo shoot, I secretly took one of the polaroids to copy at home. When we broke up, about three weeks later, I was so angry that after leaving his apartment I threw my bicycle into the canal. A few years later, shortly before he died, I found out that he must have been HIV+ at the time we were dating, though he hadn't told me. Instead he told me things like there's no greater luxury than to have a bathtub and lots of big towels. Or that as long as you're not sure whether a new date is boyfriend material, you shouldn't leave the house together. Otherwise there would be sad memories all over town once it was over. He did not infect me.