Unfinished Father
Erik Kessels
RVB Books
English
Photographs by Piet Kessels
Designed by Angela Lidderdale
Softcover
Signed, Edition 300 of 500
72 pages
170 x 230 mm
2016
ISBN 9791090306387
In 2014, Erik Kessels’ father suffered a stroke and has since been barely able to speak or move. Prior to this, he was extremely active. His projects included restoring examples of the iconic Fiat 500 or “Topolino”. Before his stroke, he had completed four such restorations and was working on a fifth, the half-finished carapace of which remains at his home. With the Unifinished Father project Erik Kessels plans to transport this last Topolino to Reggio Emilia and show it alongside the images his father made to document his restoration. For the artist, this work is about a man who, like his vehicle will never be complete destined to forever remain unfinished. Simultaneously, Topolino is the reverse of his father’s philosophy in life: he was a man who didn’t like to leave things unfinished, who saw them to their end. While films and stories teach us that endings are neat (and often happy), the truth is that everything ends abruptly, more or less unfinished. No matter how carefully we plan and how precisely we those plans are executed, there is never a guarantee of reaching the desired conclusion. We can thus attempt to control our circumstances, but in the end they control us.
About the Artist
Erik Kessels was born in 1966; he lives and works in Amsterdam. He has presented numerous exhibitions at Fotografia Europea in Reggio Emilia (2015), Centquatre-Paris (2014), Les Rencontres d’Arles (2014), the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (2013), Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco (2014–15) and the Images – Festival des Arts Visuels in Vevey (2014). He might not shoot pictures himself, but the Dutch art director and collector Erik Kessels has certainly changed the way we think about photography. As a curator of amateur photography, he’s elevated discarded images to gallery status, finding beauty and insight in pictures of, say, 20th century German police uniforms, or one woman’s lifelong love
About the Publisher
RVB Books is both an independent publisher dedicated to designing and printing unique fine arts books and a gallery featuring exhibitions on new editorial practices.
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