AGENDA
From September 24th until January 22nd 2022
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Thursday, November 4th 2021
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TICKETS
Agnès b. and La Galerie du Jour present As Far as You Can See, the first retrospective in France devoted to Erik Kessels‘ publications. The exhibition brings together nearly three decades of editorial production and features around a hundred works, including Incomplete Encyclopedia of Touch and MAN, recently published by RVB BOOKS.
Artist, publisher and leading figure in contemporary thinking on vernacular photography, Erik Kessels seeks to reveal the narrative, aesthetic and anthropological significance of images produced by amateur photographers. He is more interested in the stories contained in the images than in the photographs themselves. His work explores how these photographs, often seemingly mundane, bear witness to shared gestures, rituals and behaviours that are part of the visual history of societies. In this way, he highlights photographic trends and certain universal behaviours that transcend borders and eras.
A methodical collector, Kessels gathers images from auctions, archives, the Internet and flea markets. By reappropriating images from family albums, collected sets and anonymous collections, he offers a new interpretation that renews their intelligibility. This gesture highlights forms of repetition, staging, or incongruity that would otherwise have escaped attention. Through this approach, the artist contributes to preserving a visual memory that has been weakened by the rise of digital technology and the gradual disappearance of physical photo albums.
Originally presented in Milan at the Commerce bookshop and gallery, this exhibition has been greatly expanded to offer a comprehensive overview of Erik Kessels’ visual, editorial and photographic research.
The works are accompanied by artworks and installations that extend their themes, inviting the public to explore the complexity and richness of this collection.
As Far as You Can See questions the place of images in our societies, their circulation, their interpretation and the role they play in constructing our individual and collective representations.
La Librairie du Jour, designed in dialogue with La Galerie du Jour since its creation, will offer
for sale a selection of books by Erik Kessels featured in the exhibition.
Erik Kessels is a Dutch artist, designer and curator, and since 1996 Creative Partner of the international
communications agency KesselsKramer in Amsterdam
and London.
His practice explores the vernacular through reappropriation and editorial experimentation, and he has published over one hundred books of found and reedited images. He is also co-founder and editor of the magazine Useful Photography, and author of the international bestseller Failed It!, presented in 2016 as a major exhibition at the 47th Rencontres d’Arles.
Kessels has produced and curated numerous exhibitions, among them Loving Your Pictures, Use Me Abuse Me,24HRS of Photos, Album Beauty, From Here On andUnfinished Father. Between 2017 and 2023, a midcareer retrospective of his work was shown in San Francisco, Turin, Düsseldorf and Budapest, and he recently presented work at SFMOMA. Kessels has collaborated with artists including Marlene Dumas and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and is regularly invited to speak internationally about his approach to visual culture and photographic archives.
In recognition of his influence, he received the Amsterdam Prize of the Arts in 2010 and was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize in 2016. Time Magazine has described him as “a visual sorcerer” and Vogue as “a modern anthropologist,” reflecting the critical attention his work has received.
He is currently engaged in Europe Archive, a long-term art project exploring vernacular photography across the continent. Since 2012, he has collaborated closely with the French publisher RVB BOOKS, with whom he has released seven monographic publications among his most significant works..