Look Inside
Which art books, prints and posters are available by and about this artist? Here is a sample of items of interest to a typical collector:
Distilled from over 15.000 family albums, Incomplete Encyclopedia of Touch archives the human desire to put a hand on things. Whether it’s cars, boats, animals, trees, fridges, bridges, bushes, fellow humans or even their graves — everything that can be touched will be touched. Containing only 2.948 photos, this collection is far from ever being finished but provokes questions about the underlying motivations behind this universal pictorial behavior. Do we seek connection? Do we claim ownership? Or do we just want to measure ourselves to the objects of our world? Perhaps you could ask yourself these questions, next time you strike a touching pose.
A man flanked by an equal number of women on either side when photographed - placed exactly where he seems to prefer: right in the center. Is this manly act a matter of intent, instinct, or pure coincidence? And does this photographic composition belong to the past, or will it endure as long as one man and more women gather for a photograph?
Erik Kessels (1966) is a Dutch artist, designer and curator with a particular interest in photography, and co-founder of Kessels-Kramer, an advertising agency in Amsterdam. Kessels and Johan Kramer established the "legendary and unorthodox" Kessels-Kramer in 1996, and Kessels Kramer Publishing, their Amsterdam-based publishing house.
He is "best known as a book publisher specializing in absurdist found photography", extensively publishing his and others' found and vernacular photography. Notable works include the long-running series Useful Photography, which he edits with others, and his own In AlmostEvery Picture. Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said "His magazine, Useful Photography, forgoes art and documentary for images that are purely functional. ... Humour is the unifying undercurrent here as it is in Kessels Kramer's series of photo books, In Almost Every Picture".
