We start the year 2023 with a comprehensive solo exhibition of Paul Kooiker, one of the most important conceptual photographers of the Netherlands. The exhibition "Smooth Cotton" at Galerie Zink Waldkirchen is dedicated to his work created in the context of fashion photography and is a continuation of his exhibition "Fashion", which opens at FOAM Fotomuseum Amsterdam on December 8, 2022. While the term "fashion" implies a current, momentary trend, Paul Kooiker's works, on the exact opposite, seem timeless and fallen out of time. Kooiker has photographed for numerous major magazines, including AnOther, Dazed, Vogue, or fashion stars such as Rick Owens and his wife Michèle Lamy; yet the results of his images break with the supposedly universally valid aesthetics of fashion photography through his special, artistic gaze, his playful approach to model, brand, and fashion, and his idiosyncratic, sometimes absurdly surreal stagings, and bring the motifs into a new, very own artistic and artificial world.

The works by Paul Kooiker are in important private and public collections, such as Akzo Nobel, Netherlands, DSM, Netherlands, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Fries Museum, LeeuwardenDe Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam, ABN AMRO Collectie, the Netherlands, Caldic Collectie, Wassenaar, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands, Achmea Kunstcollectie, Zeist, H+F collection, the Netherlands, LUMC, Leiden, The Ordonez Falcon Collection, Spain, La Maison Rouge, Paris, Zabludowicz Collection, London. He lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands.