Commisionned by
Foam 

Artist
Jan Hoek

Date
25 January – 17 March

Foam proudly presents the first 3h exhibition of the new year, Me & My Models, by Jan Hoek. Jan Hoek has photographed amateur models, mentally ill homeless people in Africa, a girl with no arms and legs, a heroin addict who dreams of being a model, or people he has simply found in advertisements on the internet. The photo shoot is never what he expected, model and photographer always have different expectations. The model actually wants sex while Jan Hoek wants to shoot the dog. The model tries to be as glamorous as possible, while Jan wants to picture the decay. Photographing is not just about the image but also the relationship between the photographer and the model. How far can you go with your models? In the accompanying film, Me & My Models, Jan talks about the nasty, funny, painful or touching things that happen around photographing people.

“I believe there is always a certain degree of ethics involved in photography. It is almost impossible to take photographs of people without consciously, or unconsciously, crossing boundaries and with things happening that you don’t want or expect. I feel this is often covered up in photography, while I would like to show it … ”

Jan Hoek (1984) is an artist and writer. At the age of 12 he published his first text. He wrote for Spunk, Mister Motley, ELLE girl, Club Donny, NRC Handelsblad,  nrc.next, Parool, L’GAY, PSY and Vice. At the age of 24 Jan Hoek started at the Image and Language department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In 2012 he graduated with the film Me & My Models.

This exhibition has been made possible by Van Bijlevelt Stichting and the Gieskes-Strijbis Fund.