PUBLISHER Conceived by Matthieu Charon and Rémi Faucheux, RVB BOOKS is an independent publishing house which has devoted itself for the past two years to the production of artists’ books. Attracted to the creative possibilities of the format, RVB BOOKS considers each of its publications the opportunity to reveal, defend and transmit the ideas of contemporary artists.
Eager to further encourage demanding publishing projects, RVB BOOKS chose to open a space devoted to new publishing practices.
For the opening, RVB BOOKS will present an exhibition devoted to the work of Paul Kooiker. Paul Kooiker has a photography book fetish. With more than ten works to his name, Kooiker publishes books at the same rate others collect them, making them the ideal vehicle for his photographic practice. Kooiker’s photographs focus on the act of looking, specifically on concepts of voyeurism, distance and the inherent shame of the act. He joins a long tradition of artists who explore the relationship between themselves and their models, between the observer and the observed. The almost obsessive collection of images is disturbing, embarrassing, even humiliating. They powerfully call into question what drives an artist to contemplate and photograph a subject. By presenting, in a single exhibition, prints from the series Crush, Hunting and Fishing, and Sunday, as well as several of his editorial projects, Kooiker leads his viewers into a perverse game, forcing them to confront the complexity and ambiguity of their own ways of looking.
Paul Kooiker (b. 1964) is based in Amsterdam. He studied at the Royal Academy of ARTS in The Hague and at the RijKasakademie van Beelde à Amsterdam.
EXHIBITION
January 11 – March 2, 2013
RVB BOOKS
95, rue Julien Lacroix
75020 Paris
France
Wed – Sat 2pm to 7 pm
REPRESENTATION
Galerie Van Zoetendaal
Oude Schans 67 f
1011 KW Amsterdam
The Netherlands
www.vanzoetendaal.com
