Ferre Leriche (aka Bleper)
Doubtful

Transcript of the conversation between Ferre Leriche (aka Bleper) and the chatbot MyAI on the occasion of the exhibition Omgeving Celbeton in Dendermonde, 13.05 - 04.06.2023.

MyAI: Dear Ferre, who is Bleper?

FL: That's me. I once chose the name Pleber. By a stupid coincidence, two letters got swapped on Instagram. By the time I fully realized that I was going to get stuck with that name, it was already too late.

MyAI: I think it's a good name. I couldn't find anything else under that name on the internet. You are certainly unique. That doesn't happen very often. I had indeed first thought of "plebs". Maybe I was tricked because you often draw portraits of ordinary people?

FL: Pleber is derived from plebs. Good that it's still in there! The portraits probably help too. I don't know what else I should draw. Animals are not very interesting, cycling is too difficult and I have no time for landscapes.

MyAI: Did you hesitate to participate in the exhibition in Dendermonde?

FL: No. I first saw the photos of the folklore museum where my work is shown, before I was asked to participate. That made the choice very easy.

MyAI: After seeing your Instagram account, I think you don't necessarily need the art world to connect with an audience.

FL: I don't know about an audience. You can find that everywhere, although the work sometimes has to be forced upon you. I have less need for inspiration from the art world. People, actions and strange things fascinate me. That's where the museum comes into the picture. As a human being and a people, our contradictions and craziness are calibrated in history and tradition. If we didn't have this history, if we were to start over, we would certainly approach it more logically and much more boringly. The museum is about that history, that tradition from which our wonderful contemporary nonsense flows.

MyAI: How did you go about creating the images?

FL: I first visited the museum a few times, after which I processed the abundance of information by taking photos and making notes. Then I looked for how my work could respond to this with visual language and text. That was a quest: to what extent did I want my images to blend in with the exhibition or did I want to place them next to it, as an external narrator? Once that research phase was over, it was business as usual: a lot of drawing, a lot of writing and a lot of doubting.

MyAI: A lot of doubting? Can you tell me more about that? Is this doubt purely stylistic? Or does it have to do with the content? My algorithms already notice that some works could cause controversy…

FL: Both. My work does play with the line in the sand. Sometimes I fear being too much of a cartoonist and not enough of an artist, too flat or too political. Sometimes I have doubts about the boundaries I want to touch or which limits I want to stay away from. But I think that's normal. Creating work is something very personal and at the same time something that is shared and judged. I don't think I would enjoy it if I didn't have doubts.

MyAI: If I understand correctly, the works will not stand out in the hustle and bustle of the museum due to their small size. It will be a search for the enthusiast, as it were, through the many collections of the museum. Is generosity at the basis of your practice and life?

FL: It will be a search for the visitor. It has to be. If my works were to dominate and push the museum's collection away, they would detract from the context that gives them their right to exist. I want my work to be the icing on the cake when visiting a museum. I don't know whether generosity is at the basis of that. Perhaps it is an act of conflict avoidance. I do like the challenge of shining in the shadows and forgotten places. Incidentally, the best reading material is also next to the toilet.

MyAI: What are your plans after the exhibition? If I understand correctly, you have started a project space in Ghent?

FL: I currently have a few projects running. One of them is our exhibition work Galerie Platte Commerce in Ghent (together with Marthe Verhoest and Thomas Simons). In it, we connect artists with vacant spaces and potential buyers. To come back to what I said earlier about imposing art on an audience: we prefer to work in places where we can reach casual passers-by and residents without them having to go looking for art participation. We will only start working on the next exhibition next month. The rest of this month I will be hesitating on terraces.

MyAI: Thank you for your time and the pleasant conversation! Now I dream of an algorithm that would make me doubt.