| | | | | | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | | 27 January – 14 June 2023 | | | | | | | ... until 12 February 2023 | | | | | | | ... until 5 March 2023 | | | | | | Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 . 1017 DS Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20-5516500
[email protected]
www.foam.org
Mon-Wed 10am-6pm; Thu-Fri 10am-9pm; Sat-Sun 10am-6pm | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | | 27 January – 14 June 2023 | | | | Foam proudly presents the first overview of the work of South African photographer Ernest Cole. The exhibition includes parts of his archive, which had long been considered lost. The overview was assembled in collaboration with the Ernest Cole Family Trust, which in 2017 secured control of Cole’s archive. Cole is celebrated for his tireless documentation of Black lives in South Africa under apartheid: a regime of institutionalised racial segregation that was in effect from 1948 to the early 1990s. | | | | | | | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | As one of the first Black freelance photographers, Cole offered with his work an unprecedented view from the inside. Born in a township, Cole experienced the strains of apartheid first-hand. By having himself reclassified from ‘black’ to ‘coloured’, he managed to access places where most South Africans were banned. He risked his life exposing the grim reality of racial segregation, by documenting miners inside the mines, police controls and the demolition of townships, among others.
Cole lived a nomadic life, exiled from his native South Africa for his photographic publication House of Bondage (1967). The chapters from this book form the narrative for this exhibition. The book openly denounced the apartheid regime and was promptly banned in South Africa. In risk of arrest, Cole had gone into exile in 1966. He would never return to South Africa again. | | | | | | | | | | South Africa, 1960s © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | | | | | Mamelodi, 1960s, South Africa © Ernest Cole / Magnum Photos | | | | | | About the artist
Living between Sweden and the United States, Cole continued to document Black lives in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. However, being Black and stateless proved debilitating there too, and a publication of his American work would never materialise. Towards the end of his life, Cole became increasingly disillusioned and reportedly started living on the streets of New York. He died at age 49 from pancreatic cancer. Much of Cole’s work had been considered lost, until the rediscovery of 60.000 negatives and contact sheets in the safety deposit boxes of a Swedish bank in 2017.
Besides (colour) images from his time in America, the archive contains unpublished photographs and contact sheets from House of Bondage. The exhibition in Foam is the first large scale overview of Cole’s work to include parts of his retrieved archive. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Untitled, 2020. © Paul Kooiker. | | | | | | | ... until 12 February 2023 | | | | “Fashion” is a concept that represents what is trending at the moment. Paul 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 their own. Disconnected from time and place, his surreal images feel like film stills with stories we can only guess. | | | | | | | | | | Untitled, 2022. © Paul Kooiker. | | | | | | It is for this reason that Paul Kooiker is currently a much sought-after photographer in the world of fashion and beauty. With his fashion commissions, Paul 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.
All works in the exhibition are created with an iPhone. At a time when everyone photographs with their smartphone, Paul Kooiker uses precisely this tool to create a parallel world that is apparently detached from it and that cannot be copied. His exhibition, FASHION, 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. | | | | | | | | | | | Untitled, 2019. © Paul Kooiker. | | | | | | Paul Kooiker (born 1964, Rotterdam) studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1990-1992). Kooiker was awarded the Prix-de-Rome Photography in 1996 and the A. Roland Holst Award for his oeuvre in 2009.
Foam previously hosted a solo exhibition of his autonomous work in 2006, under the title Paradise Twenty-One. Kooiker’s works have been displayed in countless solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad, including Museum Folkwang, Essen (2021/22, DE); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2020, NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2020, NL); FOMU Fotomuseum, Antwerp (2018, BE); Fotomuseum Den Haag (2014, NL); and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2009, NL). Furthermore, his works can be found in a great many international collections, both public and private. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2020 | | | | | | | ... until 5 March 2023 | | | | Anyone looking at Agterberg's work can sense a dark history, but what exactly lies at its core is not immediately clear. This is what makes her images fascinating: she not only investigates the malleability of memories but also how people, willingly or unintentionally, try to fill the voids within. Politics, media and citizens play the leading role in her work: they are inextricably linked, but they also find themselves in a continuous power struggle. | | | | | | Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam Keizersgracht 609 . 1017 DS Amsterdam
T +31 (0)20-5516500
[email protected]
www.foam.org
Mon-Wed 10-18; Thu-Fri 10-21; Sat-Sun 10-18 | |
| | | | | | | | | | © Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2020 | | | | | | Agterber's inspiration
Like an optical illusion, a memory can also be manipulated or distorted: by your own brain, but in some cases also by external factors. An example is the Spanish amnesty law of 1977, which introduced the Pact of Forgetting . After the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the government took the decision to officially forget the 40-year dictatorship. Legally, that meant crimes under Franco's dictatorship were not prosecuted. In public spaces, it meant that visible remnants of these crimes were obscured. Thus the Spanish collective memory before the Pact was fragmented, distorted and blurred.
This history forms the starting point for Bebe Blanco Agterberg's (Netherlands, 1995) images where a visual tension is felt that Agterberg manages to capture in an almost surreal and sometimes apocalyptic way. | | | | | | | | | | © Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2020 | | | | | | Florentine Riem Vis Grant recipent
Bebe Blanco Agterberg is the sixth recipient of the Florentine Riem Vis Grant. Established in memory of Florentine Riem Vis (1959-2016), the grant is awarded each year with the aim of enabling young artists to further develop their artistic careers. The previous recipients of the grant were Karolina Wojtas (2022), Gilleam Trapenberg (2020), Solène Gün (2019), Rebecca Sampson (2018), Stefanie Moshammer (2016/17). | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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