Hunting & Fishing/ Paul Kooiker
YEAR 1998
SIZE 16x20.5
COLOUR full colour
BINDING Paperback with dust jacket
PAGES 112
TEXT English, German, Japanese version
CONCEPT Paul Kooiker / Willem van Zoetendaal
DESIGN Willem van Zoetendaal
ISBN 9075574134
Naked women running through woods and meadows is an almost foolproof subject, and in his first solo show in this country, the Dutch photographer Paul Kooiker pursues it with single-minded zeal. Almost all of the women are photographed from behind, seemingly in search of — or pursued by — someone or something. It is hard to tell which, a puzzle that lends an air of poetic mystery to these images. To add to the intrigue, Mr. Kooiker has chosen to give his camera work the look of painting. The soft-focus photos are manipulated in the darkroom, then transformed into digitized images and printed on watercolor paper. The result is a blurry ”painterly” look in which some bodies are easy to discern, others so indistinct that they all but blend with their woodsy backgrounds. There are figures that could be takes from a pornographic movie, and others that suggest the innocence of, say, an anthropological film on tribal folkways. The most assertive (the works are all untitled) is one bathed in golden light in which a woman with a spectacular mane of Pre-Raphaelite hair, yet reminiscent of a Cézanne bather, steps like a wary animal through a field of tall grass; among the ghostliest is an image so deliberately out of focus that the body is almost indistinguishable from dappled areas of sun and shadow. But these seductive male visions are flawed by the suggestion in the show’s sardonic title, ”Hunting and Fishing,” of women as wild game. (NYT2002)
GUP #34 WHAT WE LIKE²
August 15, 2012 Author: Erik Vroons
Liberated from the boundaries usually set by the chosen themes, this time we decided to define our personal preferences. What you see in this issue are our picks from the lush and widely blossoming tree of photography. What we like is Herb Ritts, Bert Stern’s last sitting with Marilyn Monroe, and the complete box of black and white images by Bruce Davidson; the archive of Kodachrome pictures by David Armstrong; Anders Petersen and his gritty but spirited view on Soho; Daido Moriyama, Paul Kooiker, the hidden archive of the Institute for Concrete Matter…
There is so much we like. Emerging photographers? Yes, we didn’t forget to include them. Titus Simoens and Xiao Xiao Xu both in their own way skilfully documented obscure subcultures: lonesome cowboys and champion show guinea pigs. We could just never think of a way to combine both within the same theme. Making the most out of this ‘free’ issue, we also show Benjamin Goss’ stunning technical skills, and are happy to present the aesthetic appeal of chanting women portrayed by Newsha Tavakolian.
Together, this will give a good impression of the width and depth of our photographic tastes. But there is still plenty that couldn’t be squeezed in. What we like in addition to what is included here can be found online. Meanwhile, we are doing our best to continue enriching our expanding webzine. Like!
Source: GUP#034 - What We Like²
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