The Artist at the Age of 7

Little Ivanhoe poses on a step, serious and self-confident, sword raised and shield at the ready. The round, brown-tinted photograph of the young knight is incorporated into a larger area, which is filled with simple, diagonal red, blue and green lines. It is as though we are looking back at the analogue past from a digital present. The whole image is enclosed within a grand gold-colored frame, befitting a hero. The Artist at the Age of Seven is not only a strong visual statement, but also an ironic comment on the phenomenon of the heroic masculine artist that dominated the 1980s. The multi-faceted Van der Kaap – photographer, writer, producer, DJ, television producer and more besides – made his name in the 1980s with staged photography, Rabotnik television and the extraordinary art magazines Zien and Blind. In 1991, his exhibition Hover Hover was the first convincing presentation of digitally manipulated virtual images at the Stedelijk.