When I first visited the water lily pond at Monet’s house in Normandy, I came home that evening with a special memory. It wasn’t a memory of the place I had visited that afternoon, not a memory of the physical experience of that day, but a memory of a painting I had seen in real life. I remembered the painting of the bridge over the water lily pond. I found it hard to comprehend that this image was stronger than the memory of the physical place where I had been that day.
Perhaps because that painting has occasionally appeared to me throughout my life, on calendars, in books, on coffee mugs, kitchen aprons, and so on. A day later, I decided to look up the painting, to reflect on how it relates to my physical experience from the day before. The painting didn’t exist; there were more of them. To be precise, there were 48, of which 24 are considered finished works. I felt the repetition with which the image had presented itself to me throughout my lifetime here again. A series of paintings that all seem to be siblings, each with a small variation.
A study, to get a better and better grip on how the reality before your eyes should relate to what is shown in the replicated version of it. When, with the discovery of photography, the need for realism in painting diminished, there was a space to explore, to look at things anew, to approach things differently - with Monet as one of the shapers of this new movement. With the advent of data, I think we are witnessing another such revolution, though it is taking place in a much more dormant way - the virtual illusion actually does little to entice us to look at the same thing again and again - the algorithms feed us new material in the same frames each time.
More than a century later, I stood there, for the first time, with one of the first digital cameras, which would once again revolutionize realism in photography. The countless times I then visited the garden, that long drive again, those roundabouts again, that same road again, through the tunnel, into the garden, the same stream of tourists; I filled floppy after floppy with this early digital relic of a machine (the Sony Mavica from 1997 stores its files directly on a floppy disk). A camera that, compared to its contemporaries, set us back almost a century in terms of realism; the colors are dull, the contrast is strange, the sensor in the device still doesn’t know how to handle the light, and the resolution is extremely low. An abstraction of what can be seen in front of the lens, compressed to a JPG of 640x480 pixels. The first camera that didn’t produce original material but only data, data that could be distributed directly via its carrier; and that was worth more to many people than a quality image.
During these two years I got to re-experience the importance of repetition, looking at the same thing over and over again, yet approaching it slightly differently each time. After the first ride, subsequent rides felt monotonous, until I began to notice the small differences. The trees discolored, the roadwork came and went, the landscape changed. So did the garden. I began to understand this very need for repetition, to feel the resignation of observing, to take notice of the small changes that show you a bigger picture. The waves of different plants blooming at different times of year, the lilies that show their flowers a little later on a cold day, the absence of tourists in winter, when the plants retreat and the bridge, by now a replica, fully reveals itself…
One last time I walk through the gift-shop to the exit, and of all the types of items you can think of I choose a cap with the bridge on it. I wear it during the last ride back, ending at home on the couch, where I grab my phone, again that access code, again that same app, again that same scrolling.
2024
Series of 24 framed panels with floppy disk + soundtrack
Supported by Mondriaan Fonds and AFK
Disk 002, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 99 × 88 cm / framed 102,5 × 105 cm
Disk 011, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 92 × 90 cm / framed 94,3 × 105,8 cm
Disk 076, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 92 cm / framed 92,5 × 109 cm
Disk 019, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 93 × 90 cm / framed 96,5 × 107 cm
Disk 056, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 90 × 90 cm / framed 93,5 × 107 cm
Disk 060, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 116 × 89 cm / framed 119,5 × 105 cm
Disk 012, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 92 cm / framed 92,5 × 109 cm
Disk 001, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 100 cm / framed 92,5 × 117 cm
Disk 045, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 98 × 117 cm / framed 101,5 × 134 cm
Disk 054, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 92 / framed 92,5 × 109 cm
Disk 030, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 87 × 74 cm / framed 90,5 × 91 cm
Disk 055, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 93 cm / framed 92,5 × 110 cm
Disk 062, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 95 × 100 cm / framed 98,5 × 117 cm
Disk 064, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 92 cm / framed 92,5 × 109 cm
Disk 068, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 93 cm / framed 92,5 × 110 cm
Disk 072, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 90 × 100 cm / framed 93,5 × 117 cm
Disk 074, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 92 cm / framed 92,5 × 109 cm
Disk 080, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 81 × 100 cm / framed 84,5 × 117 cm
Disk 081, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 93 × 74 cm / framed 96,5 × 91 cm
Disk 090, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 89 × 92 cm / framed 92,5 × 109 cm
Disk 095, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 90 × 100 cm / framed 93,5 × 117 cm
Disk 008, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 88 × 100 cm / framed 91,5 × 117 cm
Disk 098, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 81 × 92 cm / framed 84,5 × 109 cm
Disk 065, 2024, Custom archival c-print on dibond in pink stained wooden frame with museum glass, mirrored inner edges and file on floppy disk 86 × 100 cm / framed 89,5 × 117 cm
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The Newport Desk, 2024 / Handmade archival print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive in white stained maple frame with museum glass / 123 x 168 cm / Unique piece
The project Dirty Desks started form an interest in our digital roots, the moments where our physical existence started to lose attention to the cost of new digital worlds demanding our eyes, ears and thoughts. As one of the projects within this framework, Dirty Desks started with an image that is one of the first ‘memes’ I can recall, a meme from before the word meme was even used in its contemporary sense, and was mostly still called a ‘funny image’. While browsing my old hard drives, I saw this image again, an image that was with me a decade ago, but has been with me on several occasions ever since.
Surprised by how long this image was kept alive, copied from computer to computer, from phone to phone, from chat to chat for all these years, I decided to make a physical copy in the real world of it. It took me almost a year to find all the items and make my set as perfect as possible; the beer cans with outdated design come from Malaysia, the bottles from the USA. The cigarette packs were redesigned by me, printed and folded, as were the yoghurt cups, the energy drink piss-bottles, the McDonalds cup and several other items in the photo. The ashes are made of ground sesame seeds and coco flakes, which caused a major mouse problem at the studio, but that’s another story.
I photographed the set with an 8x10 inch camera, and made an analogue print of 126x160cm. The negative will never be digitized - the image exists to be a copy in the physical world. For every copy to be made, I will rebuild the set, and photograph and print it again. A further series of ‘Dirty Desks’ based on memes is planned; memes in which we joke about our excessive use of computers.
2024
Supported by Mondriaan Fonds
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Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch murder suspect who became notorious as a suspect in the Natalee Holloway case, was presented to the press in 2011 when the Peruvian police took him into custody. At that time he allegedly committed a second murder. There was no evidence presented yet, no court case, no court-date set at the moment of this presentation, but the trophy was already in and ready to be displayed.
We follow Joran from the moment he’s brought inside, until he is taken out of the room again. In the hall hundreds of journalists where waiting for him, and when he enters the room they start to discharge their triggers on him, standing idle in front of the camera’s with a bulletproof vest. The film consists of collected footage from that particular moment.
2011
Video, PAL, 11.37 min.
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This project is about a collection within a collection. The collection When The Twins Were Still Beautiful began with a painting, a kitsch object with purple tones on which the Twin Towers could be admired in all their splendor.
The painting that started it all turned out not to be the only painting by this painter that would end up in the collection. Over the years I found another one, from a private seller in Amsterdam, who bought it from a gallery (the card was still stapled on the back). Then I bought another one in Belgium, bought from the artist himself at the door. With that last story more followed, I short several in various places throughout the Netherlands, and also one in Germany. All bought from the artist at the door. I also acquired two from the USA via Ebay. Bought on the street, from the artist himself.
I currently own of these 16 canvases, all signed with the name Giacomo - except for one. That one has Johnson on it. With the growing number of canvases I came to own, my doubts about this Giacomo, and the way the canvases are made, also grew.
The towers always stand the same, but all the elements in the surroundings seem less steadfast. Sometimes the bridge is at right angles to the canvas, sometimes diagonally - regardless of the unchanging position of the towers. When comparing the towers, one also notices that the strokes of paint on the canvas are all almost identical - as if made with a mold. A copy that repeats itself over and over, with the occasional variation.
Starting last year, with each canvas I acquired, I entered into a conversation with the seller. In what way did they take possession of it? And do they remember what this painter who came to the door selling these works of his own hand looked like? Using old police software from the ’90s, I generated an artificial face based on their clues which comes as close as possible to the memory they have of this artist. Will I ever find this Giacomo? Or do they turn out to be mass-produced canvases sold at the door as merchandise by various figures posing as the authors?
2024 (in progress)
Oil paintings + Digital drawings
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Fusillading at Lishui Photography Festival at Lishui Art Museum, 2017
Fusillading
Lishui Photography Festival at Lishui Art Museum
2017
Curated by James Ramer
The 2017 edition of the Lishui Photography Festival will have a theme that is highly relevant to today’s modern society—Images in the Era of Hypermedia—the 2017 edition is proof that the festival continues to innovate and showcase emerging talents. The festival will examine the different strands of contemporary creation.
In addition to traditional photography, the 2017 edition will focus on techniques and contemporary practices making use of VR, video, multimedia installations, performance, etc., thereby broadening the debate on the characteristics of “hypermedia,” i.e., virtual reality, interactive devices and photography today.
The exhibition Where does the Future Get Made, organized by James Ramer, will present the creations of some twenty artist-photographers from all different cultural backgrounds, including the US, China, Europe and the Middle East.
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#IDIDNTJOIN at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 2014
The work #IDIDNTJOIN by Thomas Kuijpers (Helmond, NL, 1985), engages in an anonymous Twitter campaign by US soldiers in 2013 about their government’s position in the Syrian civil war. The protest was prompted by US support for the Syrian rebels after Assad’s alleged chemical attack on the Syrian people. Shortly after, the photos proved to have been uploaded by the Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-Assad hackers group, to critique Obama’s decision to back the rebels who also receive support from the Al Qaida terrorist network.
Yet a week later, the first US soldier admitted to having uploaded a picture. Kuijpers also added anonymous photos to the campaign. His installation invites the viewer to choose: what is real and what is fake?
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The civil war in Syria had been going on for many months, but the use of chemical weapons on August 21, 2013 suddenly caused the conflict to become an international conflict. The UN agreement against the use of chemical weapons made interference from other countries inevitable. There was one problem; it was unclear who fired the rocket, the rebels or Assad? The US where the first ones to point the finger towards Assad, choosing the side of the rebels, who also had support from Al-Qaida. This conflicting situation caused a small protest of U.S. soldiers who spoke out against this war, against fighting alongside Al-Qaida.
Pictures of anonymous soldiers started to appear on Twitter under hashtag #IDIDNTJOIN, their faces hidden behind a written message that made it clear that they were not willing to fight in this war. Besides that it’s forbidden by law in the U.S. to make a political statement in uniform, this was not the kind of campaign that helped the government plans to intervene in this new war.
Right after, a notification that the Syrian Electronic Army (Syrian pro-Assad hackers) was behind this campaign appeared, claiming the first pictures initiating this campaign, were posted by them. A week later, the first American soldier came forward, publicly admitting that he was one of the soldiers who had photographed himself with a protest message.
As I collected these images my confusion grew as I couldn’t tell which ones were genuine and which ones were frauds. At this point, I started taking my own photos that looked like the ones I found, and started posting them on twitter under the same hashtag. The images where accepted like all others, and ended up in the mix of all the images already out there.
To me the unclarity of these images is like the unclarity within the story of the chemical rocket; no one knows who ‘shot’ these, with which intentions or from which angle. We can only guess.
2014
Installation with overhead projectors, light boxes and transparencies.
The installation was aquired by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam to be part of the permanent collection.
Installation shot, Biennale Für Aktuelle Fotografie, Mannheim, 2022
Volumes
Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Mannheim, DE
2022
Curated by Iris Sikking
Volumes exhibition text
Over the last year, flatness has preceded everything. Whether through the screens we use for daily meetings or the newspapers we leaf through looking for news about tomorrow, flatness is no longer just a choice. It has become the default means to experience because of an inability to do otherwise. In a time when we can only move within prescribed boundaries, flatness reigns supreme.
At the same time, our flattened existence has not extinguished the urge to seek each other out in times of struggle, injustice, sadness and fury. Countless events of police brutality, women’s rights violations, corruption and environmental disasters have seen millions come together in defiance, shoulder to shoulder.
It seems that today, perhaps more than ever, the world unfolds on two polarised fronts; one visceral, wrought with presence, and one flattened, an unending constellation of two-dimensional media. Whilst they are different, both fronts add to a kaleidoscope of experiences for each and every happening.
In Volumes, Kuijpers examines how the landscape of flat media conditions our responses to events in the real world. To do so, Kuijpers has scoured recent history for events that epitomise the divide between an event and its representations. The protests in Poland over abortion rights, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the commodities of the pandemic amongst others. In every event, there has been a transformation. Each has happened in the world, and then each has been multiplied, manipulated and moulded into a torrent of other, but related, experiences. Volumes unpacks these other experiences found in television, iconic imagery, advertisements and products, asking what happens to the real issues when these new experiences swamp our daily lives.
When, for instance, Deepwater Horizon erupted in 2010, the event for most of us happened not through the event itself but through the hundreds of images and videos that came after. One such image was of a pelican, wings outstretched and engulfed in oil. It is an iconic photograph — a digital analogue for the disaster. For Volumes, Kuijpers used the image to create two new representations of the event. One, an engraved copper plate with the photograph repeated so it resembles a Google image search, and the other a taxidermic replica of the pelican, complete in its identical pose. In both works, Kuijpers has taken an event we knew only through its compressed, pixelated form and made it tangible — more real, perhaps, than before. In doing so, he makes us aware of how our experience of the world is conditioned by the media that represents it.
Volumes does this repeatedly, but whilst the works themselves aren’t restricted to a single medium or material — mirroring the infinite ways an event is represented — the same questions persist throughout the exhibition. What is felt and what is lost when an event is made flat? What does it mean to participate and what does it mean to spectate? How do events in the past meet us in the present and what do they mean for the future? As is characteristic of Kuijpers’ work, Volumes is an installation of palpable experiences that test, poke, stretch and reiterate these questions. Kuijpers, however, doesn’t want us to simply experience them, but to think about their consequences too. After a year defined by flatness, Volumes is a timely and visceral encounter.
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Over the years, I’ve been collecting old records made for charities—CDs, vinyl, and cassettes; obsolete media addressing major world problems that, unfortunately, haven’t become obsolete themselves: they’re still with us. Save the Amazon, Save the Whale, Artists Against Cancer, Artists Against Hunger, Ban the Nuke, to name a few. It is a growing collection that mirrors our need to feel involved and to show we care about issues, but on the other hand it also reflects the complexity of being in a world that makes us aware of so many causes we cannot possibly become deeply engaged with all at once. Sometimes, buying a record, signing a petition, or changing your social media avatar must suffice.
The collection will soon be fully photographed and posted here for y’all to browse.
2020 (ongoing)
Collection of media in various formats
CREDIBLE_SOURCE consists of a newspaper archive which consists of the time span from just before the covid pandemic arrived in the Netherlands, until the time the vaccine is rolled out. In organizing this archive, I was struck by how surreal all of the front pages seemed a year after the fact - from headlines with the headline “Chances of the virus reaching the Netherlands are slim” to the front pages trying to predict from day to day what the consequences will be.
While the front pages try to predict what is coming, the ads on the back of the newspaper seem to follow events, and are therefore a much more accurate document than the front pages of newspapers. The video consists of a slideshow showing a selection of different newspapers from this period, in chronological order.
2021
Newspaper archive consisting of back ads during COVID-19 pandemic
Video, 4K, loop
Duration 10:30 min.
Volumes (Solo)
The Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2021
Volumes consists of new photographic works, videos, sculptures, etchings and archival objects, forming an experimental installation that brings Kuijpers’ fascination with contemporary events and their representations to its most present.
Over the last year, flatness has preceded everything. Whether through the screens we use for daily meetings or the newspapers we leaf through looking for news about tomorrow, flatness is no longer just a choice. It has become the default means to experience because of an inability to do otherwise. In a time when we can only move within prescribed boundaries, flatness reigns supreme.
At the same time, our flattened existence has not extinguished the urge to seek each other out in times of struggle, injustice, sadness and fury. Countless events of police brutality, women’s rights violations, corruption and environmental disasters have seen millions come together in defiance, shoulder to shoulder.
It seems that today, perhaps more than ever, the world unfolds on two polarised fronts; one visceral, wrought with presence, and one flattened, an unending constellation of two-dimensional media. Whilst they are different, both fronts add to a kaleidoscope of experiences for each and every happening.
In Volumes, Kuijpers examines how the landscape of flat media conditions our responses to events in the real world. To do so, Kuijpers has scoured recent history for events that epitomise the divide between an event and its representations. The protests in Poland over abortion rights, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the commodities of the pandemic amongst others. In every event, there has been a transformation. Each has happened in the world, and then each has been multiplied, manipulated and moulded into a torrent of other, but related, experiences. Volumes unpacks these other experiences found in television, iconic imagery, advertisements and products, asking what happens to the real issues when these new experiences swamp our daily lives.
When, for instance, Deepwater Horizon erupted in 2010, the event for most of us happened not through the event itself but through the hundreds of images and videos that came after. One such image was of a pelican, wings outstretched and engulfed in oil. It is an iconic photograph — a digital analogue for the disaster. For Volumes, Kuijpers used the image to create two new representations of the event. One, an engraved copper plate with the photograph repeated so it resembles a Google image search, and the other a taxidermic replica of the pelican, complete in its identical pose. In both works, Kuijpers has taken an event we knew only through its compressed, pixelated form and made it tangible — more real, perhaps, than before. In doing so, he makes us aware of how our experience of the world is conditioned by the media that represents it.
Volumes does this repeatedly, but whilst the works themselves aren’t restricted to a single medium or material — mirroring the infinite ways an event is represented — the same questions persist throughout the exhibition. What is felt and what is lost when an event is made flat? What does it mean to participate and what does it mean to spectate? How do events in the past meet us in the present and what do they mean for the future? As is characteristic of Kuijpers’ work, Volumes is an installation of palpable experiences that test, poke, stretch and reiterate these questions. Kuijpers, however, doesn’t want us to simply experience them, but to think about their consequences too. After a year defined by flatness, Volumes is a timely and visceral encounter.
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Installation Shot at Foam, 2014
It all started with the purchase of a painting by an unknown artist depicting the iconic image of the Twin Towers. The description only said ‘painted before 2001’. When visual artist Thomas Kuijpers looked at it for the first time, the contemporary image of the collapsing towers was put on hold for a few moments, and he got a glimpse of the way the World Trade Center must have been experienced before the disaster. Fascinated by this thought, he decided to buy the painting.
This ultimately became the starting point of an ever expanding extensive collection of images and objects involving the Towers that recreate the iconic image of New York’s skyline as it was before 9/11. As a modern-day Don Quichot, Thomas Kuijpers turns the space into a diorama as an attempt to reconstruct this romantic and innocent image, before the new dramatic one got imbedded in our collective memory.
2014 -ongoing
Collection of various items
An Alternate Universe
text by Mirjam Kooiman, Foam Curator
It all started with a painting by an unknown artist depicting the iconic image of the Twin Towers. The description only said ‘painted before 2001’. When visual artist Thomas Kuijpers looked at it for the first time, the replaying footage of the collapsing towers so heavily engrained in his memory was put on hold for a moment, and replaced by a glimpse of how the image of the World Trade Center must have been experienced before the disaster. Fascinated by this thought, he decided to buy the painting. This ultimately became the starting point for Kuijpers to amass a wide collection of pre-9/11 memorabilia, including tourist photos, puzzles, socks, books, film excerpts, wallpaper and even a bathing suit.
In fact, Thomas Kuijpers artistic practice is all about collecting. Browsing the media landscape, he saves every topic of interest that might become relevant in a neat file cabinet in his studio. He has a nose for inconsistencies in media narratives and their imagery that are mostly overlooked by others. Following certain topics or media hypes for longer periods through a strict self-imposed regime of reading several daily newspapers and other media broadcasts, Kuijpers’ artistic practice is all about the development, impact, and consequences of imaging and representation. While most of his works reflect on recent happenings or developments, such as the current islamophobia in European media, the work presented in Foam 3h When the Twins were still beautiful (2014 – ongoing) harks back to longer ago and in fact reflects on a history of symbolic representation.
One of the objects in Thomas Kuijpers’ Twin Towers-collection is a postcard from 1972 with birthday wishes to Dirk, sent from New York to Holland. It is shown on the back of this booklet, and it depicts the Twin Towers as though completed, while in fact the South Tower (2 WTC) was still under construction. Although it is one of the first examples of the Twin Towers’ status as a symbol of New York in popular culture, it stems from a time of fiscal and social crises in the 1970s in which the Towers’ grandeur clashed with their social surroundings. As the backdrop against which CNN reporters presented updates on the global financial market, the WTC’s symbolism of economic power also had an unattractive aura of arrogance within New York’s rising socio-economic inequality from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Yet the more positive symbolic connotations exceeded the Twin Towers’ symbolism of economic might. The WTC was used in popular culture to symbolize “New Yorkness”. As Thomas Kuijpers’ collected footage that flickers through the installation of When the Twins were still beautiful exemplifies: a movie or series set in New York wouldn’t appear without a shot of the city’s iconic skyline with the Twin Towers shimmering in the sun, or twinkling against the night sky.
For that very reason many producers of television shows such as Friends, Spin City and Sex and the City faced an odd dilemma when the immediate crisis of September 11 took place.
The two hijacked Boeing 767s that collided into the World Trade Center not only brought physical destruction; it destroyed the shows’ symbolic backdrops that signified ‘being’ in New York. Yet little had changed in the Manhattan of post-9/11 episodes of Friends: no references were made to the event but the change of New York’s skyline, making the happening present in its very absence. Sex and the City had just finished editing its fourth season, but its executive producer decided to erase the Towers from all six episodes, including from the credits, where they were superimposed with Sarah Jessica Parker’s name – the star of the show. One image was kept however: a shot of a souvenir snow globe containing replicas of the Towers, which featured in that season’s second episode.
Thomas Kuijpers’ installation When the Twins were still beautiful contains snow globes like the one from Sex and the City, and many other pre-9/11 objects that are not kitsch tourist souvenirs alone, but in retrospect have become rather nostalgic artifacts of a New York City that does not exist anymore. Yet Kuijpers’ collection bears a plurality of implications. In a way, it might remind of another TV series called Fringe, which has used the powerful image of the Towers in a unique way - to represent an alternate universe in which they still exist. At first sight, the artist equally attempts to recreate a world in which the Twin Towers are still standing, as a modern-day Don Quixote. However, his seemingly naïve creation of an alternate universe in fact refers to another paradigm, a way of seeing the world before a War on Terror emerged, prison camp Guantanamo Bay opened and a strong feeling of islamophobia spread throughout the western world. Thomas Kuijpers doesn’t provide answers, but raises questions about what 9/11 as the biggest media event in history represents in our collective memory, and how it changed the Twin Towers’ symbolic meaning. The attacks for example completely downplayed the WTC’s negative symbolic significance and still evoke a familial sense of loss that overrules earlier feelings of socio-economic inequality. From an example of “modernist architectural inhumanity” as it had been criticized before by architectural critics, it now associates with an intense humanity as its image is linked in popular culture to the images of rescue workers and firefighters, American heroism and sacrifice.
The inventory list in this booklet captures a snapshot in time of a continuously growing collection of objects depicting the Twin Towers. Thomas Kuijpers keeps on browsing through online market places, never missing new offers through the use of notification systems that warn him every time something related to the Twins is being offered for sale on the Internet. He declares to have barely had any competition in his biddings. Glancing over this inventory list perhaps assumes we do not need the actual images anymore to recall its representation. Yet stepping into the physical inventory of When the Twins were still beautiful recreates a time and paradigm seemingly suppressed.
This text was written for the booklet that was made for the exhibition in Foam, 2015.
From behind my screen, the window on the world during the pandemic, I was not the only one who felt some hope at the beginning of the lockdown. The dolphins were returning to the canals of Venice, the air over China was visibly cleaner than ever, satellites showed, here too for lack of air traffic, several long lost species were spotted in cities again, and my news- and facebook feeds kept feeding me more such hopeful messages.
Weeks later most of these messages turned out to be fake, and with that the hope for the pandemic as a solution for all major issues melted away. While scrolling through my newsfeed during these days, where there was this small window of hope, I documented all kinds of reactions to what was going on, and collected them into 25 proposals for a better future. Hopeful solutions to big problems typed down by angry facebook users, naive thoughts about a better future in the news comments, wild statements against the system we are trapped in, all from this window of hope, a window that welcomed a thinking about alternative systems and solutions.
The images on the background are abstracted, and are all snippets of a single image, an archival image I found online showing the faded utopian dream of Henry Ford, who once tried to build a city called Fordlandia in Brazil, but it failed. As the first structures build by this big industrialist were exposed to the forces of nature again, nature took over, showing its versatility, adapting to a rather different utopian dream, perhaps one that fits the contemporary spirit better than the initial one.
These works exist as framed works, in which there are 3 layers. On the bottom of each frame there’s an acetone print, an abstract leftover of the image we see - this same image is in the middle of the frame, printed on a transparency. The glass is engraved with one of the proposals, numbered in various different numeric systems.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).
2021
Transparant C-prints on plexyglass, acetone print on 300 gr. paper
etched glass in walnut wooden frames, 32 × 27,5 cm per piece
total installation of 25 works
Supported by Mondriaan Fonds
A. Any Minister that has worked on any policy, should be banned from getting a further career in the area of that policy after his duty. The influx of for instance ministers of finance that later become a CEO at a bank is a recipe for corruption and disaster. We must prevent that. In order to make sure they won’t remain jobless afterwards, they will have a life-long pension after their services for the country.
B. Education will be free. An effort must also be made to push this measure through worldwide. All countries should have the same tuition (free).
3. Health care should also be free. Everyone should have the right to never be afraid to go to the doctor. This also applies to dentists.
IV. Shell will lose its title ‘royal’, because there’s little to be royal about.
-. Speaking of Shell, they, like all other internationals operating in the Netherlands, should pay taxes for the services they provide in the country. The tax system for internationally operating companies should be radically changed, and no longer based on the address where they are registered (how medieval is that?) but on the amount of sales/services they provide in a region. Let’s strive to apply this for all of Europe, and hopefully the rest of the world will follow. If Facebook makes 23 billion in revenue with ads in the Netherlands, then that should be taxed in the Netherlands. Ireland (where FB is now officially based) should only get the Irish taxed revenue. Not for the whole of Europe. This way we can avoid the existence of tax havens and have companies pay locally for the services they locally provide.
F. The developing European rail network should be given absolute priority. Europe must be better connected; all major capitals must be within easy reach. This is the fastest and most pleasant way to create a sense of unity; to make it really low profile to get into other countries and see what they have to offer. The sense of borders in Europe is still quite strong, an affordable train network connecting the entire continent would reduce that.
七. State and church should be separated (didn’t we write this down before?) – so political parties based on religious learnings should be banned.
8. The state should never interfere with journalism.
9. The state should never interfere with art in any form. (unless the concept of art is abused to physically hurt living beings)
X. Machines that convert seawater into drinking water should be distributed worldwide. (some proven technological options are already available)
II. Referenda can only be applied for local issues that affect a region of up to 100.000 people.
十二. A system that calculates fines and other financial penalties by ratio will go into effect, since the law should be the same for everyone, so should the impact of the penalty if you break it.
13. All claims made in parliament must be fact-checked, this is the only way to inform the people and keep their vote rational. A list of disputable claims will be published in all newspapers each week, with a list of sources providing the information used to dispute the claim.
ΙΔ´. Online insults, threats and other forms of verbal/written abuse will be punished in the same way as in real life. This may result in a serious prison sentence. The first offense will be a warning, the second a fine and a ban from social media for a period of time. If the perpetrator uses social media under a pseudonym during his ‘ban time’ to make further death threats or something similar, this will be treated in the same way as violating a restraining order.
O. Totalitarian regimes will be dealt with as such, and business with regimes known to violate human rights will no longer be allowed.
ט”ז. We will welcome those who are willing to flee from such regimes.
Q. Countries within the EU that violate human rights, and attempt to tear down basic equality between sex, gender, race or preference will lose all financial support from the EU when laws that push these boundaries are put into effect.
R. Growing your own food will be subsidized and encouraged by free agricultural courses and the provision of fertile plots of unused land in urban and rural areas. The government will provide organic seeds (no Monsanto stuff) and growing supplies to all families in need.
١٩. All drugs will be legalized.
«. A giant offshore wind farm must be built.
U. We will no longer import meat products, nor will we export it. Buying meat grown and slaughtered in your own community will be encouraged, as opposed to buying meat from large-scale production factories, which will close over time. Limiting scale and transportation of animal products will help prevent future pandemics.
V. There will be high taxes on consumer goods made in low-wage countries like China, Bangladesh and Vietnam to discourage the exorbitant consumption of single-use clothing and other single-use items.
�. Funding for the arts will be rebuilt over time so that all the theaters, exhibition halls and concert halls can continue to inspire us to all thing freely and critically, to express ourselves, to be entertained and to be encouraged to engage with someone else’s ideas. These are essential building blocks for a tolerant society, which have been vastly underestimated in recent years.
24. Banks will be thoroughly screened for risky investment funds, these will now be banned (internationally). Banks must go back to providing a service instead of being casinos. Banks that operate abroad, or are foreign, will have to pass this scrutiny before they are allowed to do business here. Their entire operation must be focused on service, and they must not hold risky funds, nor must they be affiliated with banks that do.
Y. Lobbying: We need to separate the firm and state. No corporation should donate to political campaigns, especially not anonymously. Nor should they be allowed to buy political influence, in any form. Currently, most of the lobbying sector acts as an intermediary between the corporation and the state, and should therefore be abolished.
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Volumes
Noorderlicht Fotofestival 2021, NP3, Groningen, NL
Curated by Paulien Dresscher
In ‘Volumes’ onderzoekt Kuijpers welke invloed het landschap van vlakke media heeft op onze perceptie van gebeurtenissen in de echte wereld. Hij heeft hiervoor de recente geschiedenis afgestruind naar voorbeelden die deze kloof tussen een gebeurtenis en haar tweedimensionale representatie toonbaar maakt.
Voor de expositie in NP3 richt Kuijpers zich op de protesten in Polen die ontstonden nadat een bijna totaalverbod op abortus werd doorgevoerd. Deze massale demonstraties, waar hij vorig jaar als deelnemer en toeschouwer bij aanwezig was, zijn het onderwerp van zijn werk tijdens ‘The Makeable Mind’.
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Deepwater Horizon, 2021 / Taxidermy pelican in epoxy / 180 x 85 x 80 cm / Unique piece
When Deepwater Horizon erupted in 2010, the event for most of us happened not through the event itself but through the hundreds of images and videos that came after. The biggest natural disaster we’ve seen in history was reduced to the flatness of the images it generated. One such image was of a pelican, wings outstretched and engulfed in oil. It is an iconic photograph — a digital analogue for the disaster.
I used the image to create two new representations of the event. One, an engraved copper plate with the photograph repeated so it resembles a Google image search, and the other a taxidermic replica of the pelican, complete in its identical pose. In both works, I’ve taken an event we knew only through its compressed, pixelated form and made it tangible — more real, perhaps, than before. In doing so, I try to make us aware of how our experience of the world is conditioned by the media that represents it.
2021
Taxidermy pelican in epoxy / 180 × 85 × 80 cm
Engraved copper plate in walnut wooden frame / 82,5 × 31 cm
Results (Grid), 2021 / Engraved copper plate in walnut wooden frame / 82,5 x 31 cm / Edition of 3
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Burst (Continuous Light), 2021 / 24 Lambda Prints on dibond behind perspex / 60 x 40 cm each, total installation 960 cm long / Installation Shot at Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen, NL
During the corona years, flatness was all around us, more than ever. Whether it’s from the screens we use for daily meetings or the newspapers we flip through looking for news about tomorrow, flatness is no longer just a choice. It has become the default way of experiencing things because we can’t do otherwise. In a time when we can only move within prescribed boundaries, flatness reigns supreme.
At the same time, our flattened existence has not extinguished the urge to seek each other out in times of struggle, injustice, grief and anger. In countless events such as police brutality, violation of women’s rights, corruption and environmental disasters, millions of people have stood shoulder to shoulder in resistance.
It seems that today, perhaps more than ever, the world is unfolding on two polarized fronts: one visceral, laced with presence, and one flat, an infinite constellation of two-dimensional media. Though different, both fronts contribute to a kaleidoscope of experiences for each event.
During that pandemic, I scrolled trough the world more than ever, wondering what engagement still meant in a world suddenly reduced to clicking on petitions, livestreams and likes. One of the livestreams that kept popping up on my timeline was a livestream of a protest in Poland. A protest against tightened abortion laws called Strajk Kobiet; one of the largest protests going on in Europe at the time. At a time when bringing many bodies together was dangerous, that was exactly what was happening to advocate self-determination over the body. I clicked ‘like’ and scrolled on, but the commitment I felt to the streams grew larger and larger. This threatened not only Poland, this was a conservative trend that was becoming felt throughout Europe. The echoing question of what involvement meant in an age of likes and scrolls to me, made me decide to hop on a nearly empty plane to Warsaw and join the crowd.
Once there, I live-streamed my presence on the ground (summarized in the video This is Where it Happens), while photographing. The live-stream in progress has all the aspects we know from a contemporary live-stream: low resolution, grainy quality; the kind of footage we usually see when we are in our living room witnessing an event in the distance. Later, at home, I went through this video footage frame by frame, to see if I could find a moment that transcends this virtuality and establish a connection to the other side of the screen. Triad is the frame that presented itself in that search.
I photographed with a high-speed still camera, which eats a roll of film in 3 seconds: 10 frames per second. I shot scenes during the protest with this camera, sequences of images that show a fraction of a moment. The movement is slow but visible, things change in the sequence, but exactly what changes and to what extent remains unclear. The work Burst (Continuous Light) shows an elderly woman at the heart of the protest in 24 images.
2021
24 lamda prints on dibond, lamda print in frame, video
Supported by Mondriaan Fonds
This Is Where It Happens, Part 2, 2021, video/PAL/loop, Duration 14:58 min.
Triad, 2021 / Lambda Print in walnut wooden frame / 93 × 190 cm
Burst (Continuous Light), 2021 / 24 Lambda Prints on dibond behind perspex / 60 × 40 cm each, total installation 960 cm long / Installation Shot at Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen, NL
Installation Shot of ‘Volumes’ at The Ravestijn Gallery, 2021
This Is Where It Happens, Part 2, 2021 / Video, PAL, loop / Duration 14:58 min.
Over the years I’ve been focused on the exchange between the virtual and the physical, especially in the direction of (online) activism, and the way politics are being shaped by online influences. One of the major contemporary events that has some clear virtual roots was the storming of the capitol. Everything that had been brewing online for a few years already, on this day came out into the physical world. Memes that so far only had an online live, where printed onto flags and t-shirts, slogans that come from dark corners of the internet the likes.
I started collecting the flags that were present in big numbers that day, totaling over 120 different ones so far – still waiting for some to come in. The relevance for me to start this physical database of artefacts connected to this moment in time had several reasons, the first being a document for what happened: how the online dissatisfaction became a physical event, for most of us to witness online again. The second to look into the symbolism behind these flags, which also mostly originated online, in meme culture and other virtual entities - now printed on canvas and brought to the streets – with hidden messages that can only be read by those who are able to read this visual language, who are part of the visual code-system. In an attempt to crack open these mostly inaccessible symbolics, I went on flag by flag trying to trace every single element present on the flag, find its origins and share it with my audience.
The footage I used to track down the flags comes from the Parler-archives. Parler was an alternative for Facebook, used by a lot of Trumpists and other right-wing Facebook-exiles, and had a large amount of users present during the storming of the Captol that January 6th, 2021. Parler, however, didn’t have it’s security in order, and some hackers where able to archive the entire website, including all videos, texts and photographs before Amazon, the host of the website, took it offline the evening of the riots. The metadata still embedded in these videos made it possible to create a timeline of the footage Parler-users uploaded that day near, around and in the capitol. This archive was publicy shared online, and still is accessible for anyone who wants to scroll through it. I scanned through these videos, frame by frame, to both find the flags and take screenshots of their presence, but also to work as a photographer not on the scene. I took hundreds of stills from this footage, cropped and edited them into images I wish I would have made when physically being at the scene.
The focus for me within this project is very much on this relationship between a virtual and a physical presence, not only in the subject matter – but also from my perspective as a maker. The flags are a red line through the project, but I see this as just an important chapter as my ability to be a documentary photographer with other people’s footage. The way these experiences flow into one other and, although not being physically present in most of our lives, do begin to play an important role at some point.
A big part of my documentation has been published both in print as in an online version by de Volkskrant in an extensive article, in collaboration with Thomas Rueb. The online version ‘Flag Display For Trump’ won the European Newspaper Awards 2023 in the category Online & Crossmedia.
2021-2023
Collection of flags, documentation of flags and archival stills
Publication in Volkskrant, 06/01/2021
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Installation shot Van Abbehuis, Eindhoven, NL, 2020
We Are The Champions focusses on a large collection of material around the 2010 FIFA World Cup, where the Netherlands took the first prize in the final.
Starting with the newspapers that kept us informed on the preparations, these papers take us on a route until the final celebration in Amsterdam.
2010-2020
Multimedia Installation
Supported by the Van Abbehuis, Cultuur Eindhoven, Mondriaan Fonds, Dokkumer Vlaggencentrale and MAD
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We Are The Champions (Solo)
Albert van Abbehuis, Eindhoven, NL
2020
Curated by Eva van der Moer
We Are The Champions focusses on the large collection of material around the 2010 FIFA World Cup, where the Netherlands took the first prize in the final.
In We Are The Champions, Thomas Kuijpers tries to rethink the way representations of happenings are communicated to us. Understanding manipulation, and how we can use information to mirror the world in a different way than it is, are often important points of interest; usually explored through topics that got a lot of media-attention. To both the artist Thomas Kuijpers and curator Eva van der Moer it’s important to bring these stories in an accessible way to a wider audience, an audience that is not perse directly art-loving but may enter an art space for the first time because of the glimpse they catch through the window.
The topic of We Are The Champions reaches all walks of life, the power of sports and of a shared experience. For many people it will give a special retrospective view of that ‘group feeling’, being together and merging into an event.
Related Projects
Installation shot at Red Hook Labs, New York City, 2018 / Foam Talent
Thomas Kuijpers amassed an archive of front pages, sensationalist headlines, and popular images that kindle a collective fear of terrorism. He encroached into the fringes of the web, tracking the posts of a number of right-wing/anti-Islamic communities to study the kind of information their members consume. In an attempt to retrace what exactly inspires his own angst, he filmed and photographed situations in his daily life that triggered associations with terrorism. A truck loaded with gas tanks: surely the perfect weapon to drive into a crowd? A blurry positive of an ambulance passing at speed: a car bomb explosion. We see a woman participating in an online forum, and a veiled woman on a bus watching what seems to be an online sermon.
Both inhabit virtual realities that unconsciously and involuntarily inspired suspicion with the artist. With his therapeutic practice of collecting and deconstructing the visual make-up of a shared paranoia, Kuijpers questions how our perception of reality is led largely by sensationalism, fake news and irrational fears.
He fell into a dark hole after Trump got elected. Where his practice before was always about understanding the structures behind the image, opening up these structures to the public, Trump destroyed these structures overnight by introducing the term ‘fake-news’- instantly making everyone a media-skeptic. Confused about his role as an artist, and willing to understand why people would give their vote to someone like Trump (or his European equivalents), he encroached into the fringes of the web, tracking the posts of a number of populist communities to study the kind of information their members consume. No work was made in 4 months, and while Kuijpers only consumed this information, something weird started to happen to his daily reality. When being at a crowded party, for instance, these bataclan-flashbacks started to appear, leaving Kuijpers wondering where to run when someone with bad intentions would come in. These triggering moments, to Kuijpers clearly influenced by the amount of information he consumed, became increasingly more present in his daily life.
In an attempt to retrace what exactly inspires his own angst, he filmed and photographed situations in his daily life that triggered associations with terrorism. The photographs of these situations where taken back to the studio, where he used his archive of front pages, sensationalist headlines, and popular images to retrace the cause of the paranoia at that moment. With his therapeutic practice of collecting and deconstructing the visual make-up of a shared paranoia, Kuijpers questions how our perception of reality is led largely by sensationalism, fake news and irrational fears.
2017-2018
Multimedia Installation
Supported by Mondriaan Fonds
Fences (Vague), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 66 × 57 cm, unique piece
Praying in public out loud (Bluetooth phone call), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 45 × 52 cm, unique piece
Live (Celebration), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 44 × 35.5 cm, unique piece
I’m at Zaventem (Surrounded by luggage), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 34 × 30 cm, unique piece
Full Street (Stay on the side), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 43.5 × 37 cm, unique piece
I’m at Zaventem (again), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 61 × 50 cm, unique piece
Radical verse (I suppose), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 47.5 × 38.5 cm, unique piece
Trump just made my favourite restaurant a target (or isn’t hummus Jewish?), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 58.5 × 49 cm, unique piece
In 2016 I read they will use drones to harm us at some point (can still happen any moment), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 44.5 × 53.5 cm, unique piece
13 Sim Cards (Conspiring), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 80 × 50 cm, unique piece
Aftermath (Post flea-market depression), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 47.5 × 38.5 cm, unique piece
Coffee (No Invasion), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 39 × 36 cm, unique piece
Cote d’Azur (Holiday 2017), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 50 × 41.5 cm, unique piece
Crowd (I was right there mate), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 62 × 47 cm, unique piece
Correcting the hat, not a robbery (Or Worse), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 30.5 × 35.5 cm, unique piece
Please don’t shout on the plane (especially not with a bag that clearly exceeds hand-luggage size regulations), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 57 × 72.5 cm, unique Piece
Find shelter! (The Rain Started), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 25.5 × 30.5 cm, unique piece
Blocks (indicating targets), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 61 × 50 cm, unique piece
I read it on (FB), 2018, Hahnemühle print on dibond framed behind tinted glass, 82 × 104 cm
Sermon (YT), 2018, Hahnemühle print on dibond framed behind tinted glass, 94 × 104 cm
Cargo (Weapon), 2018, Hahnemühle print + archival collage between perspex plates, 56 × 47.5 cm, unique piece
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Installation Shot Frankfurter Kunstverein / Bad Trip / Foam Talent / 2018
Bad Trip
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, DE
2018
For the first time in Germany, the Frankfurter Kunstverein presents the internationally renowned, showcase exhibition Foam Talent in collaboration with Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam. The exhibition is considered one of the most innovative formats for discovering emerging trends in photography.
It presents twenty young artists in comprehensive ensembles of works. These ensembles sketch out the image of a generation characterized by questioning everything from individual to collective identities, the effects of territorial conflict, subcultural phenomena, and the realm of possibilities within photographic production. A number of artists make use of anthropological methods and undergo intensive, long-term research for their projects. Others start with found materials from historical archives, private collections, and the Internet, which they use as raw materials for their artistic investigations. Other artists’ methods are characterized by activist approaches and strategies drawn from investigative journalism.
Their works deal with social fates and cultural differences, the human body and its representation, political surveillance, and the power of religious myths. Numerous works question the camera’s objectivity, addressing the ambiguity of the photographic image. In the context of “real fake” photographs and the moving image, not only the medium but also the notion of representing reality itself becomes a point of critical, even skeptical, observation among anyone who has taken on the task of trying to represent it.
The works brought together for the exhibition represent a renewed interest in the feedback of real conditions. They offer an inside view of subcultural phenomena, reflect on political implications and societal upheaval, and seek out the historical precedent for aspects of contemporary life. The twenty international artists have in common a search for the current limitations on and possibilities for expansion within photographic representation using available technical and digital means. They use found photographic material and reflect on archival content, they work with text and image as complementary elements, and they venture beyond the limits of traditional concepts of photography with sculptural installations and the incorporation of video works.
Foam Talent | Frankfurt offers a unique look at current artistic trends. It functions as a barometer for a medium in a constant state of change in the digital age. […]
Thomas Kuijpers seeks out the effects of an economy of fear, operative in the world today. He enquires into the mechanisms of fear, how it emerges, and how it is reinforced through media. Kuijpers collects online posts and images from rightwing and islamist groups, clips images from magazines, takes photographs of found objects, and collages them all to form his installations. These assemblages function as archives and seismographs of the representation of fear and its visual rhetoric.
Installation shot Red Hook Labs, New York City, US - Bad Trip, Foam Talent, 2018
Bad Trip
Foam Talent at Red Hook Labs, New York City, US
2018
Thomas Kuijpers seeks out the effects of an economy of fear, operative in the world today. He enquires into the mechanisms of fear, how it emerges, and how it is reinforced through media. Kuijpers collects online posts and images from rightwing and islamist groups, clips images from magazines, takes photographs of found objects, and collages them all to form his installations. These assemblages function as archives and seismographs of the representation of fear and its visual rhetoric.
Installation shot Foam Amsterdam, NL / Bad Trip / Foam Talent / 2018
Bad Trip
Foam Amsterdam, NL
2018
This year Foam presents - for the first time - the Foam Talent exhibition in Amsterdam. The presentation highlights the work of 20 international artists, consisting of countless subjects and techniques.
The works of the 20 artists selected for the annual Talent Call, which this year is the largest to date with 1,790 submissions from 75 different countries, represent an overview of current developments in photography in this exhibition.
The work of the new Foam Talents shows a current look at the ever-evolving medium and reveals various trends and tendencies. In this time of global uncertainty, many artists express their concerns by visualizing various socio-political topics in their work. Issues such as identity and representativeness also remain important themes for a new generation of photographers. In addition to portfolios with a clear aesthetic appeal, the editors of Foam Magazine saw many long-term projects this year that acquire deeper meaning and more layering over time. What is striking is the wide range of media use by emerging photographers, who rarely limit themselves to the camera alone.
The Foam Magazine Talent Issue serves as the exhibition catalog and provides a more detailed description of the work of the selected artists.
In recent years, the Foam Talent exhibition, based on Foam Magazine’s annual Talent Issue, has traveled internationally to various cities such as Paris, Brussels, New York and London. This year, the work of the selected photographers will again go on tour, starting with the exhibition in Foam.
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Sushant Chhabria (India), David De Beyter (France), Mark Dorf (USA), Alinka Echeverría (Mexico / UK), Weronika Gęsicka (Poland), Wang Juyan (China), Thomas Kuijpers (Netherlands), Quentin Lacombe (France) , Clément Lambelet (Switzerland), Namsa Leuba (Switzerland / Guinea) Erik Madigan Heck (USA), Alix Marie (France), Martin Errichiello & Filippo Menichetti (Italy), Wang Nan (China), Kai Oh (South Korea / Germany) , Viacheslav Poliakov (Ukraine), Ben Schonberger (USA), Sadegh Souri (Iran), Harit Srikhao (Thailand) and Vasantha Yogananthan (France).
Opt For Change
Unfair, Amsterdam, NL
2020
Thomas Kuijpers’ work explores the role of contemporary media narratives within our perception of the actual world. He tries to rethink the way representations of current happenings are communicated to us. The observable friction between this conveyed version of reality and the place it occupies in daily life is the most important starting point.
In ‘Opt for change’ Kuijpers explores the various ways ‘change’ is promoted in his personal environment, where traces of activism, commercialisation, and politics at times seem to be strangely intertwined.
Related Projects
Vote / light boxes with various materials and spray paint / 75 x 94 cm each / 2020
Click for change, please sign this petition, donate here, vote now, buy and support! In Opt for change Thomas Kuijpers explores the various ways ‘change’ is promoted in his personal environment. How options for a different world present themselves, and what they actually encompass. Vote, click, riot, comment.
Looking at how an urge for change is presented in grey areas where traces of activism, commercialisation, and politics at times seem to be strangely intertwined, he tries to capture the difficulties of the concept of presenting and executing changes to a larger audience.
Street graffiti, online surveys, scenes of everyday life and political billboards all become part of a cocktail that tries to lure the customer in a new direction, which by the abundance of it at times distorts the idea that there is any new direction at all.
2020
Multimedia Installation
Vote, 2020, light boxes with various materials and spray paint, 75 × 94 cm each
Twitter Image, 2020, Light box with writings, 93 × 75 cm
Bright Sign, 2020, Light box, 93 × 75 cm
Tubed Trees, 2020, light box, writings, 180 × 70cm
Collection of protest signs (replicas), 2020
Frikandel XXL for charity + Beer cans for charity
God (from The Brussels series), 2016, double sided xerox print found in public space, framed with museumglass, 20,5 × 16,5 cm
Charity Records Collection, 2020-ongoing
Flowers + replica of a note seen at ground zero, 2020
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Install shot Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen, NL / That’s Delirious! / 2019
That’s Delirious!
Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen, NL
2019
Curated by Hester Keijser
Voor ‘That’s Delirious!’ observeerde Thomas Kuijpers de manier waarop zorgwekkende hedendaagse fenomenen broeien en koken in online omgevingen, tot ze ineens uithalen en hun tentakels in de organische werkelijkheid zetten. Kuijpers is vooral gefascineerd door het moment waarop het virtuele plotseling een donkere realiteit wordt en vervolgens direct na de gebeurtenis weer tot een toestand van virtualiteit wordt gecomprimeerd.
Door het verzamelen en combineren van de verschillende informatielagen die de verhalen rond deze gebeurtenissen vormgeven – van aanloop naar, via het daadwerkelijke evenement tot de nasleep in nieuwsmedia en politiek – probeert hij inzicht te krijgen in de chaotische en oncontroleerbare stromen van informatie die zich in ons hoofd vastzetten.
‘That’s Delirious!’ komt voort uit Kuijpers’ eerdere projecten ‘Bad Trip’ (2017 – 2018) – waarin hij het effect van de overvloedige aanwezigheid van populistische informatie op zijn persoonlijke perceptie van de wereld onderzocht – en ‘Desti-‘ (2019), een film die probeert antwoord te vinden op de vraag: als we verder kijken dan de problemen waar we op dit moment voor staan, hoe ziet de ideale wereld er dan uit?
Related Projects
Installation shot at Nooderlicht Fotofestival 2019, Groningen, NL / That’s Delirious! / 2019
For the project That’s Delirous! Thomas Kuijpers has been observing how contemporary virtual phenomenons of concern brew and boil in a virtual atmosphere, until the moment they lash out and put their tentacles in reality. This moment where the virtual suddenly becomes a dark reality, and directly after this event instantly is compressed to being a virtuality again, is mostly interesting to him.
By collecting and combining the layers of information that are shaping the narratives around these contemporary events – from preface to the actual event, to the aftermath in newsmedia and politics – Kuijpers attempts to gain insight into the chaotic and uncontrollable flows of information that nest in our minds.
2019
Multimedia project
Eurospin, 2019, wall-object with Hahnemühle print and archival collage, 50 × 30 cm, unique piece
Screens, 2019, b/w photo print on photo rag, framed w/o glass, 100 × 84 cm
Block A (one side), 2019, mixed media collage compressed between plexiglass, 60 × 40 × 11 cm, unique piece
Block A (other side), 2019, mixed media collage compressed between plexiglass, 60 × 40 × 11 cm, unique piece
Sub, 2019, print in aluminium light box with chalk writings, 118 × 85 cm
Block B, 2019, mixed media collage compressed between plexiglass, 100 × 70 × 12 cm, unique piece
Transparent Composition #1-3, b/w prints on transparent foil, framed between glass + video projections, 40 × 30 cm each
Transparent Composition #1, 2019, b/w print on transparent foil, framed between glass + video projection, 40 × 30 cm
Safe, Land, Border, 2019, b/w photo prints on photo rag, framed w/o glass, 60 × 40 cm each
Transparent Composition #3, 2019, b/w print on transparent foil, framed between glass + video projection, 40 × 30 cm
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Install shot Fotopub 2019, Novo Mesto, SI - When The Twins Were Still Beautiful
When The Twins Were Still Beautiful (Solo)
Fotopub 2019, Novo Mesto, SI
Curated by Živa Kleindienst
Thomas Kuijpers will round up the Fotopub Repete series with When the Twins Were Still Beautiful, a project that questions the power of the images we are exposed to and the psychological impact of how traumatic and violent events are represented in the media.
It all started with the purchase of a painting by an unknown artist depicting the iconic image of the Twin Towers. The description only said ‘painted before 2001’. When visual artist Thomas Kuijpers looked at it for the first time, the contemporary image of the collapsing towers was put on hold for a few moments, and he got a glimpse of the way the World Trade Center must have been experienced before the disaster. Fascinated by this thought, he decided to buy the painting.
This ultimately became the starting point of an ever expanding extensive collection of images and objects involving the Towers that recreate the iconic image of New York’s skyline as it was before 9/11. As a modern-day Don Quichot, Thomas Kuijpers turns the space into a diorama as an attempt to reconstruct this romantic and innocent image, before the new dramatic one got imbedded in our collective memory.
Related Projects
Install shot Mucho Mas, Torino, IT, 2017
Decor_ is an experiment by Thomas Kuijpers, departing from the way images to him most of the time are incapable of transmitting emotions on a deeper level, because they are always approached by him from a professional point of view, and it is quite impossible to ‘turn this off’. The content gets rationalised and analysed before a true emotional respons can settle. He’s less used to textual emotion in that way, so the response to an emotion transmitted by text is usually much stronger, and less superficial.
Thomas made a series of works, they are landscapes, without persons; decors of the most horrific, repulsive videos he’s seen in years: propaganda videos by IS. After watching fragments of those videos, feeling numb, being not as emotionally disturbed as he would have expected while thinking about them, he started looking for writers, who could write a new scene to fill this decor, in an attempt to see if this combination can evoke a new feeling that, to him, is stronger than the original image. An attempt to override the handicap of the over-rationalisation of images by partially transforming them into a new format. These empty decors will be presented with a small textbook, in which new interpretations of these scenes to fill the decor will be printed.
The project was initiated by Foam: a project called Foam Farm, as a part of the Collaborate-series.
2017
Installation with printed fabrics and publication that has textual contributions by (in order of appearance):
Daan Gielis, Lucas Viriato, Airco Caravan, Anna Buccheri, Jasmijn Krol, Annika Pettini, Bakr al Jaber, Carla Besora, Marc Heinen, Iacopo Seri, Jasper Palstra, Fieke van Berkom, Paola Paleari, Lieke Smit, Elisa des Dorides, Daan Doesborgh, Pauline Bordaneil, Marcus&Sema, Taco Hidde Bakker, Melanie Hyams, Sadav Malyarovíc, Thaís Simões, Deirdre Canavan, Marjolein van de Water, Irene Siekman, Chiara Bistolfi, Bob Verbruggen, Jasper Giljam, Jip Loots, Melissa Domacassée, Joost de Jong, Luhea Noriskin, Juliet Gagnon, Nicol Guerra, Esme Boggis, Meral van de Velde, Liza Wolters, Liesbeth Schreuder, Anna Püschel, Simona Iamonte, Gijs Ter Haar, Paulo Fehlauer, Danny X Kuiper, Kim Kluijtmans, Rob van Kaam, Zerahja Kartono, Marijn Ottenhof, Michael van Kekem, and Guilherme Figueiredo.
Decor_
Mucho Mas, Torino, IT
2017
Curated by Luca Vianello & Silvia Mangosio
Decor_ is an experiment by Thomas Kuijpers, departing from the way images to him most of the time are incapable of transmitting emotions on a deeper level, because they are always approached by him from a professional point of view, and it is quite impossible to ‘turn this off’. The content gets rationalised and analysed before a true emotional respons can settle. He’s less used to textual emotion in that way, so the response to an emotion transmitted by text is usually much stronger, and less superficial.
Thomas made a series of works, they are landscapes, without persons; decors of the most horrific, repulsive videos he’s seen in years: propaganda videos by IS. After watching fragments of those videos, feeling numb, being not as emotionally disturbed as he would have expected while thinking about them, he started looking for writers, who could write a new scene to fill this decor, in an attempt to see if this combination can evoke a new feeling that, to him, is stronger than the original image. An attempt to override the handicap of the over-rationalisation of images by partially transforming them into a new format. These empty decors will be presented with a small textbook, in which new interpretations of these scenes to fill the decor will be printed.
Related Projects
In Search Of Something Better
Unseen, Amsterdam, NL
2018
During a two month residency in Stockholm initiated by Grolsch and Unseen, visual artist Thomas Kuijpers set out to investigate the progressive social policies for which Sweden is globally renowned. In his attempts to understand utopian ideas of equality and freedom in a local context, Kuijpers began interviewing the city’s inhabitants, collating their insights all the while. As the artist discovered the friction that exists between reality and the well-intentioned ideals of governmental policy, the scope of his research changed.
The resulting work, In Search of Something Better, was unveiled at Unseen Amsterdam 2018.
Related Projects
Install Shot Bieler Fototage 2018, Bienne, CH - De Eerste Maandag Van De Maand
De Eerste Maandag Van De Maand
Bieler Fototage 2018 - Le Grenier, Biel/Bienne, CH
Since the Cold War, every first Monday of the month (“eerste maandag van de maand”), an alarm sounds in the Netherlands. This sound, intended to warn citizens of approaching danger, invades the environment for 1 minute and 26 seconds. This year was announced that in 2020, the siren will sound for the last time. Thomas Kuijpers began filming these scenes back in 2014. His video illustrates the absurdity of the relationship between this alarm and the peaceful environment in which it manifests itself.
#TRUST is an expanding image bank containing election posters found in public space and framed without typographic information. The residue of each document, a photographic portrait, is the key element within the connection of the messenger and the receiver. It has to gain TRUST through the non-verbal competences of the portrayed, like sparkling eyes, a powerful gaze or a friendly smile. In the end the uniformity of the expressions levels the playing field.
2019 -ongoing
