The Stunning, Unsettling Work of Dutch Photographer Paul Kooiker
As a brand new exhibition of his pictures opens in Amsterdam, Kooiker talks about his unsettling, sepia-hued black-and-white images, capturing on iPhone, and his “virtually fetishistic“ obsession with the physique
Paul Kooiker isn’t fascinated about conventionally lovely trend pictures. “The life like, excellent color picture shouldn’t be my cup of tea,” the celebrated Dutch photographer says over Zoom from his studio in Amsterdam, including with a wry smile, “I additionally discover it just a little bit boring.” Over the previous three a long time, Kooiker has rigorously constructed his personal distinctive visible universe – one the place physique elements roam free from their homeowners, cinematic magnificence is tinged with the unsettling, and on a regular basis objects are twisted by narratives of fetish, surrealism and sculptural composition. As an exhibition of his trend imagery prepares to open at Foam Amsterdam, the artist says of his singular observe: “I actually can’t be a unique photographer than I’m.”
Although Trend isn’t Kooiker’s first showcase at Foam – a 2006 present entitled Paradise Twenty-One surveyed a decade of his work – it’s, nevertheless, the primary time the artist is presenting a mix of private works and trend pictures collectively as one. Alongside shoots for magazines like Luncheon and Magnificence Papers, the curation consists of imagery from his formidable AnOther Journal Autumn/Winter 2020 cowl story with Kim Kardashian and Michèle Lamy, which was shot throughout lockdown on reverse sides of the world. “It was particular as a result of I managed every thing however I wasn’t there,” the photographer remembers of the logistically difficult shoot. “That was new for me – you must be artistic in moments like that.”
Working primarily in a sepia-hued black and white, Kooiker’s pictures is outlined by an eerie sense of timelessness, the place a given picture might simply have been taken both yesterday or 50 years in the past – bar the giveaways of a well known face or recognisable trend merchandise. “Typically you may get just a little misplaced while you see my photos,” the artist says. “Chances are you’ll suppose, ‘Is that this the 20s, 70s, 80s, 90s? When was this made?’ The concept of timelessness is essential to me, particularly as trend itself is so updated, so new. In a method, my work is sort of in opposition to the style world.”
Surprisingly, given the comfortable analogue-quality of Kooiker’s imagery, each one of many photos within the exhibition was shot on an iPhone – a medium Kooiker favours however doesn’t wish to make a music and dance about. “What I like about pictures is when it’s not excellent, so I at all times like to work with cameras that aren’t particularly skilled,” he explains. “However I by no means made a factor of it.” What’s extra apparent in his work is an curiosity in cinema and artwork actions like surrealism and artwork brut, although whereas similarities with Man Ray, Hans Bellmer, and even the horrors of Alfred Hitchcock might simply be gleaned from his photographs, the artist states that his work merely reveals an perception into his thoughts; “how I take a look at issues, my household and life itself.”
On this timeless house he has created, Kooiker likes to play with states of ease and unease. Supplies that some individuals may discover pleasing and others grotesque – scratchy hair, sticky rubber, and metallic digging into comfortable flesh – are in all places, as is an obsession with the physique’s extremities; palms, ft, and hair. “I’m not so targeted on lovely faces,” he says. “I prefer it when physique elements have their very own life and their very own story. After I made the edit for the present, 20 photos have been about hair, 20 of them have been about footwear and possibly 15 or about palms. And naturally, while you repeat [these themes] it virtually turns into like fetishism in a method. It virtually simply occurs.”
In some ways, Kooiker treats the physique like a murals. He prefers to hone in on sculptural shapes fairly than individuals’s faces, and infrequently faucets into an unnerving doll-like uncanny. “Generally you don’t know if it’s a puppet or if it’s an actual individual, generally you don’t know if it’s a person or girl,” he says. “A battle from this type of misunderstanding is vital to me.” Although the artist is conscious this abstracted strategy could possibly be perceived as objectifying, he insists his work venerates the physique fairly than degrading it. “In a wierd method, you do sort of make an object,” he admits. “However I don’t need to objectify individuals – I simply need to play with the physique as a sculpture.”
Above all else, it appears Kooiker desires to create a world of ambiguity and stress – a spot the place the viewer can’t assist however step in and produce their very own emotions to the work. It’s because of this that, because the present opens to the general public, the artist’s want isn’t for attendees to really feel a particular method about his photographs, however merely that they linger lengthy sufficient to think about tales across the scenes he has created. “For me, it is extremely vital that folks keep within the house for a very long time,” he says. “It’s not about whether or not they prefer it, in the event that they suppose it’s good or unhealthy, however that they actually take a look at it and suppose, ‘What’s taking place?’ In order that’s my function: keep so long as potential.”
Trend by Paul Kooiker is on present at Foam in Amsterdam till 12 February 2023.
