Photography is emancipating. Many artists explore the limits of the medium and experiment with the interfaces between photography and other media or disciplines. Paul Kooiker has been distinctive for years with work in which photography is, as it were, freed from its traditional parameters. Kooiker can be regarded as an installation artist rather than a photographer “pur sang”. He is never after the perfect photographic image. Paul Kooiker’s work in fact always arises in post-production, in the selection and manipulation of his images.
Paul Kooiker was born in 1964 in Rotterdam, NL. He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague and at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1990-1992, NL). Kooiker was awarded the Prix-de-Rome Photography in 1996 and the A. Roland Holst Award for his oeuvre in 2009. Kooiker’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group shows in the Netherlands and abroad, with solos at venues including Museum Folkwang, Essen (2021/22, DE); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (2020, NL);; Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2020, NL); Garage Rotterdam, Rotterdam (2020, NL); FOMU Fotomuseum, Antwerp (2018, BE); Museum Kranenburgh, Bergen (2018, NL); The Hague Museum of Photography (2014, NL), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2009, NL), Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam (2006, NL). Work by Paul Kooiker is held in public and private collections internationally.