about the artist and his model
Paper boys
A recurring theme in Bart Drost's art projects is the image of the boy.
In 1983, during his first year of study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Drost came across pornographic magazines and sex books that contained photos of boys. Young boys. From innocent snapshots from everyday life to boys who brazenly stare into the lens in sexually provocative positions.
As an aspiring visual artist, he found the leitmotiv for his work in this: to take the boys out of their rather filthy, polluted environment and place them in a new context, a new reality. To elevate the boys, give them a suitable stage, place them on a pedestal. In short, from that moment on, the leading role in his world of the arts is reserved for 'the Boy'.
Does this mean that in his studio there is a coming and going of blushing boys? No way! Nothing could be further from the truth. 'His' boys come - dressed or naked, as the case may be - from magazines, photo albums, sex books, newspapers. From books like "How do I learn to play football" He draws them, traces them. He enlarges or reduces them as he pleases. He saws them out of wood, embroiders them, prints them. The photos become drawings, statues, suits, cushions. 'His' boys perform in installations that he composes for them, they can be seen at exhibitions that he makes as a tribute to them.
Drost collected most of the photos in the early 1980s and he uses them again and again. Initially, the photos that he had found here and there were actually visible in his art, until he realized that he had never actually asked the boys for permission. Just as little as they were asked for permission when their photos were published in all kinds of magazines or journals.
The open-mindedness with which Drost gave his Leitmotiv free rein in his art and the enthusiasm with which his work was received by the outside world at the time have slowly but surely ebbed away. The spirit of the times changes. That's how it goes. The societal view of nudity, sexuality and intimacy has lost its freedom. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, the Boy on Stage was applauded loudly, in the twentieth century boundaries are being set, booing is heard.