Jan Hoek
Jan Hoek photographs amateur models: mentally ill people in Africa who look like kings, a girl with no arms and legs who constantly wants to be photographed, a heroin addict who dreams to be a model.

The photoshoot is never what he expects; model and photographer always have different expectations. The model actually wants sex while Jan Hoek wants to photograph the dog; the model tries to be as glamorous as possible, while Jan wants to picture the decay.

In the film Me & My Models Jan shares his stories about the nasty, funny, painful or touching things that happen when you photograph people.

Jan Hoek: "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."

ABOUT JAN HOEK
Jan Hoek (1984) is an artist and writer. At the age of 12 he published his first text. He wrote for Spunk, Mister Motley, ELLEgirl, 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.

Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, City of Amsterdam, Delta Lloyd, Olympus and the VandenEnde Foundation.

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Jan Hoek