“Fashion” is a concept that represents what is trending at the moment. Paul Kooiker’s fashion photography, on the other hand, is characterised by its timelessness. The artist portrays the biggest fashion brands and today’s most famous faces, but transports them to a world of their own. Disconnected from time and place, his surreal images feel like film stills with stories we can only guess.

Untitled, 2020

Foam

Untitled, 2019

Untitled, 2022.

Untitled, 2021

Paul Kooiker

Anyone looking at Agterberg's work can sense a dark history, but what exactly lies at its core is not immediately clear. This is what makes her images fascinating: she not only investigates the malleability of memories but also how people, willingly or unintentionally, try to fill the voids within. Politics, media and citizens play the leading role in her work: they are inextricably linked, but they also find themselves in a continuous power struggle.

Foam 3h: Bebe Blanco Agterberg - Theatre of Broken Memories, 2022

Video interview with Bebe Blanco Agterberg

Behind the scenes interview with Bebe Blanco Agterberg

Bebe Blanco Agterberg – Theater of Broken Memories

Every Sunday, Foam offers free walk-in workshops inspired by the current exhibition 

The walk-in workshops at Foam are suitable for all ages. Join us on Sundays between 14.00 - 16.00 hrs.

The Flicker Phase, 1950

Walk-in workshop

, an initiative that offers specialist youth care to children, young people and families. The art project motivates youngsters to express their thoughts and feelings artistically. Participants in this project have different backgrounds and receive different forms of help. 

Foam believes it is important to give everyone a chance to become acquainted with the beauty and richness of photography. We believe photography has the power to connect and stimulate dialogue. After all, photographic image goes hand in hand with image formation and the development of opinions and points of view.

Littekens in bloei, 2022.

Foam Café

Gekozen litteken, 2022.

Womb, 2022.

Kolibrie, 2022.

Suzanne, 2022.

Celebrating Moroccan heritage with Mous Lamrabat: Foam x Pakhuis de Zwijger

Watch the video about the project

Getekend door het Leven

Our experienced museum teachers challenge you to look closely and form your own opinion on the photography in the museum.

During the Free Guided Tour, you will visit the exhibitions in a group of at most 15 people. The museum teacher strikes a balance between posing questions and providing information, helping you discover the story of the photographer, the subject and the context of the exhibitions together.

Free Guided Tour, 2022

Free Guided Tour

Foam proudly presents an overview of the work of South African photographer Ernest Cole. The photographer is celebrated for his tireless documentation of Black lives in South Africa under apartheid: a regime of institutionalised racial segregation that was in effect from 1948 to the early 1990s. The exhibition includes parts of his archive, which had long been considered lost. 

South Africa, 1960s

Mamelodi, 1960s, South Africa

New York City, USA, 1971

Ernest Cole - House of Bondage

How do you convey the experience of Orientalism through images? How is it represented in our daily lives? In the exhibition

, Gülşah Ayla Bayrak aims to answer these questions by translating Orientalism's experience, emotion, and ideas into pictures, performances, and objects. 

Join us on 4 February from 13.00 to 15.00 hrs for the exhibition's festive opening at MAQAM in Amsterdam-West. 

The start of something

MAQAM

Oriental landscape

Yallah Habibi

Techno Odalsique

Gülşah Ayla Bayrak

by Paul Kooiker in a unique way. Foam Forward Tours are based on the expertise of young students, who will guide you through the exhibition with short interactive assignments.

The tour guides of Foam Forward all participated in a long term educational project at Foam. The students have a big heart for Foam and feel it is important to take visitors through the exhibition in their own refreshing way.

Opening Paul Kooiker & Bebe Blanco Agterberg, 2022

Liz Johnson Artur - of life of love of sex of movement of hope

"Mohlokomedi wa Tora", Scene 2, 2018 

Foam Forward Tour Paul Kooiker

Lebohang Kganye focuses on exploring her family's personal and collective ‘micro histories’. Her work is embedded in the wider history of South Africa from before, during, and in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism.

The exhibition will be opened on Thursday 16 February in the presence of the artist and Foam Paul Huf Award jury members 

. You are welcome from 18.30 to 21.00 hrs at Foam. Register for free.

“Nomasonto Mthembu” from “Mosebetsi wa Dirithi”, 2022

Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Opening Lebohang Kganye

Lebohang Kganye focuses on exploring her family's personal and collective ‘micro histories’. Her work is embedded in the wider history of South Africa from before, during, and in the aftermath of apartheid and colonialism. The exhibition shows the artist's complex visual vocabulary and the diversity of media and approaches she engages with — from photographic montages to spatial installation, and from film animation to patchwork.

“Setshwantso le ngwanaka II” from “Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story”, 2013

“Habo Patience ka bokhathe II” from “Ke Lefa Laka: Her-Story”, 2013

“Shadows of Re-Memory”, Film Still 1, 2021

Lebohang Kganye – Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Join the artist Lebohang Kganye on a tour through the exhibition 

 and explore how family photographs and oral stories have shaped her work and its understanding of South African history. The tour will be moderated by the show's curator, 

Artist Tour Lebohang Kganye

Sem Langendijk's first solo exhibition shows the result of an in-depth investigation into the uprooting effects of gentrification and social inequality. The exhibition 

 shows how the new living- and working environment created for one simultaneously breaks down the habitat of the other. One who is constantly uprooted to make way.

Paul Kooiker
FASHION

Bebe Blanco Agterberg
Theatre of Broken Memories

Walk-in Workshop Paul Kooiker FASHION

Getekend door het leven

Free Guided Tour

Ernest Cole
House of Bondage

Gülşah Ayla Bayrak
The Start of Something

Interactive Tour:
Paul Kooiker FASHION

Opening Lebohang Kganye Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Lebohang Kganye
Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Meet the artist + tour: Lebohang Kganye Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Foam 3h: Sem Langendijk
Haven

Paul Kooiker FASHION

Bebe Blanco AgterbergTheatre of Broken Memories

Walk-in Workshop Paul Kooiker FASHION

Getekend door het leven

Free Guided Tour

Ernest ColeHouse of Bondage

Gülşah Ayla BayrakThe Start of Something

Interactive Tour: Paul Kooiker FASHION

Opening Lebohang Kganye Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Lebohang KganyeHaufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Meet the artist + tour: Lebohang Kganye Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Foam 3h: Sem LangendijkHaven

Paul Kooiker
FASHION

Bebe Blanco Agterberg
Theatre of Broken Memories

Ernest Cole
House of Bondage

Gülşah Ayla Bayrak
The Start of Something

Interactive Tour:
Paul Kooiker FASHION

Lebohang Kganye
Haufi nyana? I’ve come to take you home

Foam 3h: Sem Langendijk
Haven