Back in 2015, Henk Logman visited my studio at home in Nieuwegein to prepare for an artist talk at Galerie Sanaa. The day before, my studio was an incredible mess so I decided to clean up. When he arrived the next day, he said the difference was astonishing and that he was almost swept off his feet. So we decided to take a funny picture for Facebook with Henk laying on the ground in my -now organized- studio.

That turned into a running gag, of us taking pictures of each other while laying on the floor in each others exhibitions.

Fast forward to 2020. In August 2020 Marin Hondebrink and I had a duo show at ExBunker in Utrecht and Henk came to visit us. We took a picture for our series and we started joking on how we should make an installation out of this in the basement of his gallery. With a replica of Henk, but where Henk normally looks alive in his photos, we would now create a Dead Henk. And so Marin and I did.

It was hilarious. Creating Dead Henk was already lots of fun, we made casts of Henk’s face and hands to use for Dead Henk and we used Henk’s clothes and shoes to dress the doll.

The installation existed out of the doll, pink wallpaper with the title sprayed onto the wall, a leaky toilet with glitter water on the floor and cheesy jazz music playing in the background. Photos of the real Henk laying around various sites were spread through the basement. And as an extra bonus: we installed a fog machine. Lots of people got jump scares when entering the room. We all loved it.

When the second covid19 lockdown hit The Netherlands, galleries had to close and Henk moved the installation to the shop window so visitors could still see a bit of our art.

Tragically, shortly after reopening the gallery and after the opening of the next exhibition, Henk passed away unexpectedly.

In hindsight, and knowing what we know now, the installation looks grim. Still, we believe Henk would have had a good laugh at this weird coincidence of circumstances.

Dear Henk, we are going to miss you an awful lot!

Together with Utrecht-based artist Marjolein Witte I wrote an article for LUCYindelucht about Henk and what he meant for the art scene. Click >hier< to read it. (Link opens in a new window, article is in Dutch only)