PHOTO: Paul Kooiker-Fashion

Paul Kooiker moves at the interface between fashion and art. Working in his Amsterdam studio, he creates a new and idiosyncratic form of fashion and still life photography. Kooiker often exaggerates the shape of bodies to the extreme. Using artificial body extensions, wigs, and extravagant props as well as light, shadow, and fragmentation, he creates a unique visual language whose surreal undertone often recalls icons of photography and art history. Social themes such as diversity, body positivity or the fetishisation of bodies translate directly into Kooiker’s image production.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Foam Archive

Paul Kooiker is not interested in creating the perfect photographic image. The value of his work lies not in his individual photographs (which are sometimes overexposed, blurred by camera movement or grainy), but in what he does with them postproduction – the subsequent process of selection and manipulation. In the initial phase of his creative process, he is a deliberately ‘bad’ photographer, producing a mass of exploratory material that often runs to hundreds of images. He then approaches this material as a visual artist, creating ‘collections’ in the form of three-dimensional installations and photo books. These fictive collections look as if they have been found somewhere or have turned up in some ancient suitcase abandoned for decades in an attic. To ensure their credibility, Kooiker pays meticulous attention to internal consistency of form and style. This stands in sharp contrast to the contents of his series, which are often enigmatic and vaguely disturbing. Paul Kooiker’s solo exhibition “Fashion” is a concept that represents what is trending at the moment. Kooiker’s fashion photography, on the other hand, is characterised by its timelessness. The artist portrays the biggest fashion brands and today’s most famous faces, but transports them to a world of its own. Disconnected from time and place, his surreal images feel like film stills with stories we can only guess. All works in the exhibition are created with an iPhone. At a time when everyone photographs with their smartphone, Kooiker uses precisely this tool to create a parallel world that is apparently detached from it and that cannot be copied. His exhibition brings together a large variety of images from his fashion commissions to create an encompassing installation that works much like a hall of mirrors: it freezes the breakneck speed of the fashion industry and reveals the absurdity of human vanity and desire.  The practice of Paul Kooiker is characterised by a conceptual and experimental approach to photography. In his studio in Amsterdam, Kooiker uses the simplest means such as cardboard, dust and smoke, to create mysterious images that can hardly be unravelled. His style refers extensively to the history of photography and artistic movements such as surrealism, yet at the same time his images are unmistakeably idiosyncratic. It is for this reason that he is currently a much sought-after photographer in the world of fashion and beauty. For the past five years he has created works on the boundary between commerce and art, with the division between his fashion photography and autonomous works almost too fine to distinguish. With his fashion commissions Kooiker breaks free from the dominant beauty paradigms in a seemingly effortless way. He creates an unmanageable kind of beauty that is not superficial, but almost Freudian in the way it plays on dark desires, fetishisms and subconscious dreams. Furthermore, his photography transcends classic gender roles: his models adopt unusual poses and their faces are often left out of frame, obscuring their identity. At times, it is not even clear whether the subject is human, or a doll. In order to capture the extravagance of luxury objects, Kooiker magnifies its means of presentation, like for example mannequins and displays, to such a degree that it is ultimately our desire itself that is captured by his camera.

Photo Left & Right: Paul Kooiker, Untitled from the series “Fashion”, © Paul Kooiker, Courtesy the artist and Foam

Info: Foam, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Duration: 9/12/2022-12/2/2023, Days & Hours: Mon-Thu & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Fri 10:00-21:00, www.foam.org/