Paul Kooiker: Political Chaos
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45,00€
About
'Political Chaos' by Paul Kooiker is the sixth book in the Blue Books Series, published in April 2013 by Études Books.
In 2006, Dutch photographer Paul Kooiker spent three months as an artist in residence in the chinese coastal city of Xiamen. Impressed by the pace of China's economic development, Kooiker imagined a series of sea photographs where he is capturing isolated swimmers, floating in oblivion.
By focusing on the consequences of the political and economic development rather than showing it, Kooiker delivers a strong series of photographs.
Founded in 2012, Études Books is an independent publishing house created by Aurélien Arbet, Jérémie Egry & Nicolas Poillot between Paris and NYC.
About the Photographer:
Paul Kooiker (b. 1964 in Rotterdam) lives and works in Amsterdam. He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Paul Kooiker won the Prix de Rome in 1996 and in 2009 received the A. Roland Holst Prize for his entire oeuvre. Paul Kooiker’s work has been exhibited widely. 24 photographs from the 'Political Chaos' series were exhibited by Van Zoetendaal Gallery in Amsterdam in 2007.
In his work Paul Kooiker explores various aspects of the theme of looking: voyeurism, shame and distance. His work can be seen as a continuation of an old tradition focusing on the relationship between the artist and the model, the observer and the observed. Kooiker’s obsessive collections of images confuse, humiliate and unnerve. They raise questions about a photographer’s reason for looking at things and the motivation behind photographing something. The artist plays a game with the viewer, who is confronted with his or her own gaze.
Edited, designed, and published by Études Studio in April 2013
Text by Erik Viskil
First edition of 300 copies
Blue cloth cover with embossing on front, spine and back – image on front
48 pages Full Colour Offset 17 cm x 24 cm
English / French
