The Art of Paul Kooiker: Transforming Photography into Visual Narratives

I was preparing a little text on the invitation i have available on the Paul Kooiker exhibition at the Fotomuseum Den Haag and noticed the similarities between the classic Jessurun de Mesquita print and the photograph of Kooiker.

For Paul Kooiker (1964), the pursuit does not lie in creating the perfect photograph. The value lies not in his individual images, which may at times be overexposed, blurred, or grainy, but in what he does with them afterwards – the selecting and editing process. In the initial phase of his workflow, he intentionally takes on the role of a “bad” photographer, only to then transform into a visual artist, working with the exploratory material often consisting of hundreds of photos. Based on this, he then assembles a collection through spatial installations and photobooks that appears either found or entirely retrieved from an old suitcase that has been sitting in an attic for decades. The apparentness of such a “found collection,” which Kooiker manages to make persuasive through his precise attention to a consistent form and style, contrasts starkly with the content of his series, which can often be described as enigmatic and somewhat unsettling.

Paul Kooiker studied at the School of Photography in The Hague and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. In 1996, he won the Prix de Rome, and in 2009, he received the A. Roland Holst Prize for his body of work. Alongside numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally, Kooiker also dedicates a great deal of attention to publishing his photography. In the final room of the Photography Museum, he displays a multitude of his art books that have been published since 1999, often in collaboration with publisher Willem van Zoetendaal.

May of these are available at www.ftn-books.com