Innate Curiosity
2026 – present
Growing up without a phone meant finding your own way to see the world. You had to seek things out. You had to be resourceful. You had to take risks — and sometimes get caught.
Through the gap in the blinds. Through a steamed-up bathroom window. Through a peephole in a door. These were the instruments of a pre-algorithmic curiosity. Physical, embodied, slightly transgressive. The thrill was inseparable from the effort.
That impulse — to look, to wonder, to find things out for yourself — is what Innate Curiosity is about. Not nostalgia for a simpler time, but a question about what happens to curiosity when it is no longer necessary. When the algorithm anticipates your interests before you have formed them. When discovery is served rather than earned.
The works in this series invite the viewer back into that earlier mode. Objects that ask you to lean in, to reach, to look for yourself. The discomfort is part of it. So is the reward.
Dekker was born in 1980, the last generation to grow up entirely without the internet. He approaches this not as a technophobe but as a witness. What do we lose when we stop looking for ourselves?
Series I — The Peek (blinds, 2026)
A closed set of aluminium venetian blinds mounted to the wall, with a backlit photograph behind them. To see anything, you'll have to open the slats yourself — lean in, find the right angle, peek. The image rewards effort.
Series I — The Find (wastebin with Whisper, 2026)
A Dutch railway wastebin. Inside, among period debris, a brown paper bag contains Whisper — a fictional 1980s adult magazine, entirely handmade by the artist, indistinguishable from the source material of its time. To see it, the viewer must reach into the bin and lift it out.
Each work in the edition is unique. The period debris surrounding the magazine is individually composed by the artist.
Series I — The Trace (chair with traces, 2026)
A white plastic garden chair with a charging cable resting on the seat. On the floor beside it, a pair of binoculars and a classic plastic tray of fries. Someone was here. He is not anymore.
Each work in the edition is unique. The traces left behind are individually composed by the artist.
Series I — Full installation (2026)
The three works together form the complete installation. Each work is sold individually in an edition of 10 + 2 AP. Priced here as a complete set.
Each edition is unique. The contents are individually composed by the artist.
Exhibitions & Art fairs
- 2026 — NAP+, Amsterdam, NL (Gallery Torch)