Beyond style: Paul Kooiker presents his largest show to date in Amsterdam

Opening at Foam at the moment, the exhibition shows 85 pictures representing the Dutch artist’s unconventional method to style images

Paul Kooiker’s style pictures are imbued with pressure – between actuality and fiction; magnificence and malevolence; need and disgust. His pictures belong simply as a lot in shiny magazines and high-end campaigns as they do on gallery partitions, toeing the boundary between artwork and commerce. 

In the present day, the largest exhibition of Kooiker’s work to date opens at Foam, Amsterdam. It presents 85 pictures, in addition to vitrines displaying magazines from all through his profession. Born in 1964, the Dutch artist has turn into identified for creating unconventional style pictures that take cues from surrealism and fetishism. 

Titled FASHION, the show’s pictures are all pulled from completely different shoots – some are outtakes that had been by no means revealed – and introduced collectively with out order or chronology. “Lots of his pictures will elevate the query of whether or not this could possibly be thought-about style images in any respect,” says Foam curator Mirjam Kooiman. “Whereas style could be very a lot about what’s trending, his pictures carry an air of timelessness – they generally even seem to be footage from a unique period.” It might be shocking then to be taught that Kooiker made all 85 pictures on an iPhone – one other quirk in his unconventional method to style images. 

Charged with a mystic power, lots of Kooiker’s pictures are harking back to a unconscious dream state. However the sentiments behind them stay firmly rooted in actuality. As Kooiman articulates: “What this exhibition largely brings throughout is an unnerving feeling about society’s expressions of vainness and need, pushed by the breakneck velocity of the style trade that influences our appearances and behavior from season to season. Nonetheless, his work isn’t criticising something or anybody, it reasonably radiates a fascination for the absurd.”

FASHION by Paul Kooiker is on show at Foam, Amsterdam, till 12 February 2023.