Biography

Geert Kooiman was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague.
For 12 years he was successful in commercial photography for advertising agencies. He made campaigns for BMW cars, Unilever products, fashion productions throughout, as well as for glossy magazines like: Avenue in the Netherlands and Twen in Germany, the leading magazine of the sexual revolution in the sixties. He developed into a true interpreter of the spirit of that time.

In 1972 he ended his commercial work and started a series of full-page portraits of the most interesting faces of that time in the leading Dutch newspaper NRC. After this he made 30 portraits of world famous classical musicians and conductors like Bernstein, Pollini, Brendel and Jessey Norman. This series became part of the collection of the opera Garnier in Paris, France.

In 1990 he completely stops the documentary aspect in his work. There are no longer real people in his pictures. Objects, large as well as small, are now his target. This creates the opportunity for imagination. Two books: TIJDGEEST in 2004 and the humoristic book REVELATIONS in 2007 appeared. Both books match photos with famous quotations. Publisher: Author House, UK.

Over all these years, he developed a private collection titled SILENCED MATTER which, for him, became the new language in photography. Still lifes, Interiors and Exteriors. The drama of Kooiman’s lost things is the silent melancholy which they embody.

From 2011 there appear old photographs of people in his work as shown in the tryptichons, ‘Of the Visible and the Invisible’.

Since 2012 start of the project ‘The Jubelsenior’, later called ‘The Sleepwalker’, 21 photos on one panel.

Exhibitions and Publications

2018   Completion of the panel with 21 photos
2017   Still lifes – Of the visible and the invisible
2016   575 photos mounted as a film: ‘The Sleepwalker’
2015   Video ‘De Jubelsenior’, later ‘The Sleepwalker’
2013   Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam,
Digitising Contemporary Art for Europeana
2012 – 2018   21 photos ‘De Jubelsenior’, later ‘The Sleepwalker’
2011   Creation of ‘Of the visible and the invisible’
2010   Start of the project ‘De Jubelsenior’, later ‘The Sleepwalker’
2009   Edition Analoog (60 gelatin silverprints)
2008   Interactions
2007   Photo book Revelations, Author House. English quotations and photos
2006   Edition ‘Wat we zien is niet wat we zien maar wat we zijn’
2005   Exposition 50 posters – Tijdgeest – In the Amsterdam Stopera
2001   Edition Photo book – Tijdgeest – Publisher Voetnoot Antwerpen
2000   Gallery Graphes France
1999   Galleria Puresa Palma de Mallorca
1996   Galleria San Michele Brescia
1995   Exposition – the photo collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen
1992   Group exposition Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam
1991   Portrait gallery of 32 musicians in the collection Opera Garnier Parijs
1990   Exposition Letterkundig Museum Den Haag
1989   Publication in NRC Handelsblad of 12 portraits De Tachtigers
1989   Seasons Galleries Den Haag
1988   Canon Image Centre Amsterdam
1986   Seasons Galleries Den Haag
1985   Gallery Arrigo Zürich
1984   Museum Fodor Amsterdam
1983   Gallery Brinkman Amsterdam
1982   Seasons Galleries Den Haag
1981   New York Art Fair
1980   Seasons Galleries Den Haag
1979   Group exposition Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam
1978   Fundatie Kunsthuis Amsterdam
1977   Galleria San Michele Brescia
1977   Meeting with Francis Bacon concerning trampoline-photos
1976   Peter Stuyvesant Foundation Amsterdam
1975   Gallery Fagel Amsterdam
1976   James Yu Gallery New York
1975   Group exposition Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam
1974   Bedford House Gallery London
1973   Galleria Formi Bologna
1972   Goethe Institut Amsterdam

Please visit the websites of the artist:

www.impicturexl.com and www.thesleepwalker.nl