| | | |  | | | | Folly, 2017 © Anouk Kruithof | | | | | | | 17 November 2017 – 28 January 2018 | | | Romain Mader » The Following is a True Story | | | | 17 November 2017 – 7 February 2018 | | | | | | | 17 November 2017 – 14 January 2018 | | | | Opening: Thursday 16 November 2017, 5:30 pm | | |  | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | | | Petrified Sensibilities 2017 © Anouk Kruithof | | | | | | | | ¡Aguas! | | | | 17 November 2017 – 28 January 2018 | | | Foam presents the first major solo museum exhibition by Anouk Kruithof (1981, Dordrecht) as part of the exhibition series Next Level.
The work of Kruithof is a refreshingly original contribution to contemporary photography. Approaching the medium from a great variety of angles, her works are equally versatile, ranging from photo collages to video animations, installations, sculptures, publications, performances and public interventions. Common premise is a fascination for the online representation of societal issues. Kruithof subjects these to critical scrutiny by extracting existing imagery from the digital sphere, and translating the photographs into her own three-dimensional visual idiom.
Foam commissioned Kruithof to create an entirely new body of work consisting of (photo) sculptures, a video projection and an animation. The works explore the complex relationship of man to nature in a post-internet era. Kruithof printed images of environmental disasters on latex and rubber anti-slip mats and draped these over sculptures made up of artificial appendages of the human body, such as walking frames, crutches and prostheses. She also combined vividly colored photographs of oil spills and toxic waste with structures made from oxygen masks and anesthetic masks. These unusual carriers refer to the technological accomplishments of the human race, while simultaneously expressing the artificiality, numbness and ultimate disregard that may be the consequence.
Through her abstract works, Kruithof reminds us of how disastrous realities are aestheticized and shared unthinkingly on the internet. A video compilation of amateur recordings of melting and collapsing glaciers functions as a metaphor for a collective degradation. The falling ice originally found its way online in the form of sensationalist posts; sequenced by Kruithof they form a confrontational and relentless indictment. By incorporating such images into a both colourful and apocalyptic installation, Kruithof wittily queries the culture of the spectacle and our digitally mediated relationship to the physical environment.
Kruithof’s hybrid sculptures are a seductive representation of an uncomfortable reality in which man finds itself increasingly trapped in a state of chaos and decay. The exhibition title – ¡Aguas! – refers both to the element of water that largely makes up the world and the human body, and to a commonly used Latin American warning cry: ‘¡Aguas!’ also means ‘Watch out! Beware!’ The exhibition constitutes an alarming visualisation of how the incessant flow and consumption of digital images gradually alienates us from the physical reality that surrounds us.
Artist Talk Anouk Kruithof
For the occasion of the exhibition Foam organises a talk with the artist on Saturday 18 November. The artist and Foam curator Hinde Haest will discuss a number of her projects, with particular focus on her new body of work that is part of the exhibition ¡Aguas! at Foam.
Event: Saturday 18 November 2017, 4pm - 5pm
Sign up here. | | | | | |  | | | | Flat head, 2017 © Anouk Kruithof | | | | | | Anouk Kruithof’s work has been included in group exhibitions at renowned institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has had solo exhibitions in galleries both in the Netherlands and internationally. In 2016 Kruithof won the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunstprijs public’s award, and in 2014 the Charlotte Köhler Prize. She won the Hyères Photography Jury Grand Prize in 2011 and in 2012 the International Center for Photography in New York awarded her the Infinity Award. In 2006 her collaborative project with Jaap Scheeren was exhibited at Foam, and she was selected as Foam Talent in 2009. Kruithof has published eleven artist’s books and is founder of The Anamorphosis Prize, an international award for self-published photobooks. Anouk Kruithof lives and works alternately in the Netherlands, Mexico City and New York.
NEXT LEVEL
Since the autumn of 2015, Foam presents the exhibition series Next Level, with the support of Ammodo. The series is aimed at introducing the wider public to innovative art by relatively young artists who are making radically new use of the medium of photography.
Next Level: Anouk Kruithof - ¡Aguas! is supported by Ammodo and the Mondriaan Fund. Foam thanks Stichting Foam Friends and Foam Fund for their generous support of this exhibition. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | | | Bientôt (Soon), from the series Ekaterina, 2012 © Romain Mader / ECAL | | | | | | The Following is a True Story | | | | Foam Paul Huf Award 2017 | | | | 17 November 2017 – 7 February 2018 | | | Mader won the Foam Paul Huf Award for his series Ekaterina, depicting the search for a bride in the fictitious city of Ekaterina. The series is part of the exhibition, which consists of several projects that jointly form a narrative about a naive young man in search of happiness. Mader plays with the tension between reality and fiction. His work stands out for the humour and irony with which he addresses serious topics such as loneliness, love, exploitation and the female body. Beneath the seeming superficiality of his images, his work contains many layers that can be interpreted in various ways.
Mader plays a subtle game with what we believe to be true – a game with which he confronts us with our own assumptions and prejudices. In this day and age, of ‘fake news’ and idealised user profiles on social media, Mader’s work demonstrates that the frequently asked question about the truthfulness of photography is still a relevant one. | | | | | |  | | | | Demande en marriage (Marriage proposal), from the series Ekaterina, 2012 © Romain Mader / ECAL | | | | | | The Following is a True Story offers a chronological overview of Romain Mader’s attempts to find happiness. In the series Moi Avec Des Filles (2009), Mader tries to create the impression that he is quite a ladies’ man by posing with attractive hostesses at a car show. In De Nouveaux Amies (2011) he undertakes very awkward attempts to make new friends by posing with apparently random groups of people on the beach. He then decides to take serious action by deploying a ‘wingman’ to help him get a girlfriend, as depicted in the slide show The Girlfriend Experience (2012-17). After a brief affair with Priscillia, it is time to find a female companion fit to be his wife. The series Ekatarina shows the episode in which he travels to the fantasy city of Ekatarina, which is mysteriously inhabited by only women who are all named Ekatarina. After he finds his own Ekatarina, he asks her to marry him at the foot of the Matterhorn in his home country of Switzerland. In addition to the photographs, the story is also told by means of a video consisting of a slide show with the artist’s voice-over, reporting on his amorous adventure. The exhibition ends with his most recent work, The Honeymoon (2017): a video documenting his honeymoon in which Mader promises his brand new wife a two-week stay in a honeymoon suite, but in the end the couple spend three months travelling like hillbillies through an economically ravaged Greece.
FOAM PAUL HUF AWARD
The Foam Paul Huf Award, which is awarded annually to talented international photographers under the age of 35, includes a cash prize of €20,000 and an exhibition at Foam Photography Museum Amsterdam. The jury has chose Romain Mader as the winner out of 100 nominees from 26 countries. Previous winners include Taryn Simon (2007), Alex Prager (2012), Daniel Gordon (2014) and Daisuke Yokota (2016).
Romain Mader (1988, Switzerland) studied photography at ECAL in Lausanne, Switzerland, and will complete his Master’s in Fine Arts in Zürich this year. He came to international attention after his work was featured in the 2016 group exhibition Performing for the Camera in London’s Tate Modern. This coincided with the publication of the book Ekaterina (Mörel Books). Mader’s work has been included in several international group exhibitions, and he has also had a number of solo exhibitions in his home country of Switzerland. Foam is now hosting his first international solo exhibition. Starting in 2012, Mader has regularly collaborated with artist Nadja Kilchhofer.
This exhibition is made possible by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | | Florise, Haiti, 2017 from the series Tomorrow of Yesterday
© Stefanie Moshammer | | | | | | Tomorrow of Yesterday | | | | 17 November 2017 – 14 January 2018 | | | | In November 2016 and March 2017 Stefanie Moshammer visited the Haitian island Île-à-Vache. What looks like the Caribbean dream straight from a stock photograph, with waving palms and white beaches, is also a place of unfulfilled promises. Besides the beautiful surroundings of the deep blue ocean, bright green nature and colourful streets, cities and sea shores are also coloured by litter and waste, from plastic bottles and bags to polystyrene wrappings. In her series Tomorrow of Yesterday, Stefanie Moshammer researches notions of paradise, between Western ideals, yesterday’s promises, and the everyday lives of the people who live there. | | | | | |  | | | Under the Palm Tree, Haiti, 2017 from the series Tomorrow of Yesterday
© Stefanie Moshammer | | | | | | Stefanie Moshammer (b. 1988, AT) lives and works in Austria, where she received a BA in Graphic Design & Photography from the University of Art and Design. Her work - which has been exhibited in Austria, France, Portugal and Italy – has been published by the likes of Collector Daily, Purple Magazine, i-D, GUP Magazine and VICE. In 2015, Moshammer’s first photobook, Vegas and She, was published by Fotohof edition. In 2016 her work was also part of the Talent Issue of Foam Magazine and the internationally travelling exhibition Foam Talent.
Stefanie Moshammer is the first recipient of the Florentine Riem Vis Grant. The grant was established in memory of Florentine Riem Vis (1959-2016) with the goal of supporting young photographic talents in the development of their artistic careers.
The Foam 3h exhibitions are made possible with support of the Gieskes-Strijbis Fund and the Van Bijlevelt Foundation. The prints in the exhibition are produced by Kleurgamma.
Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, City of Amsterdam, Delta Lloyd, Olympus and the VandenEnde Foundation. | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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