03 june 2024, Wouter van den Eijkel
The studio of... Florian Borstlap en Ko de Kok
There is no shortage of attention to snacks like fries, minced meat hot dogs and croquettes. Various snack influencers can be found online with tips on where to find the best mexicano or frikandel speciaal in the Netherlands. But never before has the snack been elevated to art. Rotterdam duo Florian Borstlap and Ko de Kok conceived their ode to snack culture for an 'art supermarket' to circumvent the rules during the pandemic lockdown.
A few years down the line and the ice cream snacks by Borstlap and De Kok are a huge success. Not surprisingly considering the fact that they are almost indistinguishable from the real thing and make your mouth water just looking at them. De Kok draws the snacks and ice creams photorealistically – he found the puff pastry of a sausage roll just out of the oven to be quite a challenge – while Borstlap creates a suitable frame for each snack. The popsicles, for instance, have a frame made of popsicle sticks. The duo has ambitious dreams and wants to add a large kapsalon (fries topped with shawarma and cheese) with a frame made from an aluminium tray to their collection.
Snack can be seen until 16 June at Gallery Untitled in Rotterdam.
Do you share a studio or does each of you have your own studio and you bring your work to the other's studio when needed?
The project started because we shared a studio at Keilewerf in Rotterdam, where we both worked independently, Florian on everything from multidisciplinary costume and set design to performance art and music production, painting and sculpture, and Ko mainly on drawings, but increasingly on objects and performances. In May 2023, our entire studio burned down, including many snack artworks. After the fire, we raised money and started the Snack Lab at Keilewerf 2 solely for this project. Since the beginning of this year, Ko has had a studio, gallery and shop space on Voorburgstraat, a nice location in the Hofbogen in Rotterdam North, while Florian is working on a new studio/performance space.
Florian Borstlap & Ko de Kok, Kroket met mosterd, 2023, Gallery Untitled
How did your collaboration come about and how does it work exactly? Who does what?
In 2017, we moved into the studio at Keilewerf together, where we occasionally worked on performance projects together. In 2020, during the pandemic lockdown, Snack Art was born. We could exhibit at Roodkapje, which established an art supermarket with shopping carts due to the lockdown to circumvent the restrictions. We started thinking about what we would like to show in the art supermarket and came up with the idea of framed drawings of fries with a blob of mayo (acrylic paint) on the frame: Frietje met-lijst. It was a success and after this exhibition, we expanded a collection of fries with other works, including hyper-realistic sculptures of frikandel speciaal and framed popsicles with disco dip and popsicle sticks. We always look for a convergence of our skills. Ko is the drawing genius, while Florian develops the sculptures and customised frames and manages the operations of this project, including communication. We come up with content choices and new ideas together.
Florian Borstlap & Ko de Kok, Puntzak met mayo, 2023, Gallery Untitled
What is the best part about working as a duo?
Combining our strengths, allowing us to enhance each other's qualities, a synergy that creates more than the sum of its parts (1+1=3).
Congratulations on Snack! What inspired the series?
For this exhibition, we worked larger, greasier and more consistently. It also shows how multiple techniques come together, such as in a giant soft serve ice cream cone in which both coloured pencil (cone) and oil paint (soft serve) are used.
Florian Borstlap & Ko de Kok, Oubliehoorn met discodip, 2023, Gallery Untitled
You view snacks as cultural heritage. With the series, you highlight croquette balls, ice cream and beer. Did you think there was too little attention to and appreciation of these things?
We find that elevating something you usually don’t spend time looking at but immediately eat is a fantastic way to combine beauty and a love of tasty snacks. There are lots of snack influencers on Instagram who devote considerable attention to taste and culinary experience, but nowhere are snacks elevated to art. The everyday and sometimes somewhat ordinary nature of snack bar culture contrasts nicely with the classic and refined art context in which we place it. Both worlds are united, creating both alienation and almost romantic recognition: the nostalgia we and many others have when we think back to our childhood when we loved eating such snacks. The way the work is created is reminiscent of Pop Art, which in this case is a match. We are pleasantly surprised by the considerable success of this project. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has even included a series of work in its art collection. We also receive fun requests from buyers and companies.
The snacks are all photorealistically drawn, which is incredibly impressive. Which snack was the hardest to draw and why?
Ko: As far back as I can remember, my drawings have bordered on photorealism. The snack project has a certain simplicity and straightforward approach: we try to capture the essence to take the viewer into our experience. The aesthetics and technical perfection are very defining for our work and are something in which we go to the extreme. One snack is easier to capture than the other. I found the sausage roll to be quite a challenge. Making the puff pastry look like it just came out of the oven took a lot of work. I think this is because there are so many layers and details to it and the texture is very dynamic as a result. Give it a try some time! For Florian, the greatest challenge was to match the structure and colour of the chopped onions on the minced meat hot dog sculptures. We view the work as hyperrealism: the depiction of our work is, as you also see in advertising photos, more beautiful than in reality.
Every work has a custom frame. For example, the frames of the popsicle drawings are made from popsicle sticks. How did you come up with that idea?
Because we started with the fries with a blob of mayo on the frame, we wanted to continue along the same line: 1+1=3. Our strengths combined very well here and we had a lot of fun with the endless possibilities of our art project. When we thought about ice cream, we couldn't resist coming up with something playful and fitting, so we ended up with popsicle sticks. It was a eureka moment, like a melting ice cream on a hot summer day when you realise you're actually drinking soup.
Florian Borstlap & Ko de Kok, Portie bitterballen met mosterd, 2024, Gallery Untitled
Which snack would you like to add to the collection?
In addition to a classically painted snack still-life with a custom-made Baroque frame in which various snacks, sauces and packaging are incorporated, we dream of creating a huge kapsalon with a frame made from an aluminium tray in which the viewer can also discover the central station of Rotterdam.
What are you currently working on?
We’re working on eating fewer snacks and slowly expanding the collection. Initially, our idea was to commercialise this project like Pop Art, but we now find it more interesting as a niche or cult style of art.
Florian Borstlap & Ko de Kok, Snack, 2024, Gallery Untitled
