FOAM - Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 1017 DS Amsterdam Pays-Bas
Paradise Twenty-One presents various series of photos and new video work made over the last ten years by Dutch photographer Paul Kooiker. Kooiker's work reflects his fascination for perception. He focuses on the female form, which appears in his work in many different ways. His oeuvre is a contemporary continuation of a traditional theme: the relationship between artist and model, viewer and viewed, object and subject. You never feel at ease when viewing work by Paul Kooiker. Not that you turn away, because the image is always compelling. You keep looking, despite that disturbing feeling. Generally subtle, occasionally challenging. Kooiker approaches each series as a project. Because he works with series, the definitive value of each individual image is only apparent as part of the whole. With his series of forty blurred photos of a stretch of woodland in which women appear to be peeing in the open air, Kooiker won the 1996 Prix de Rome for photography. This voyeuristic motif is a constant theme in his work and is explored in a playful way in his 'Hunting and Fishing' series (1999): in a lush green landscape we see blurred forms of naked women running away from us. Sometimes a series may expresses erotic desire, associated with observation; sometimes the emphasis is on the study of models posing in less than erotic positions. As in the 'Model Studies 2001' and 'Showground 2004' series, in which the setting is confined to Paul Kooiker's studio. The result may be beautiful, disturbing, ironic or intriguing, but always personal.