Erik Kessels is a Dutch artist, curator and communication designer, with a keen interest in art and photography. Since 1996 he has been Creative Partner of the communication agency KesselsKramer.
As an artist and curator, Kessels has published over 100 books dedicated to his “reappropriated” images and is the author of the international bestsellers Failed It! and Complete Amateur. During his more than twentyyears of career, Kessels has established itself as an undisputed reference point in the field of so-called "found photography".
He has taught at several art academies in Amsterdam, Milano, Toronto, Lausanne and Düsseldorf.
Kessels has created and curated exhibitions such as Loving Your Pictures, Mother Nature, 24HRS in Photos, Album Beauty and Unfinished Father. He is currently working on a long-term European art project called Europe Archive.
In 2010 he received the Amsterdam Prize of the Arts and in 2016 he was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Until 2022 his mid-career retrospective was presented in Turin, Düsseldorf and Budapest; more recently he also exhibited at SFMOMA. Time Magazine called him "a magician of the visual" and Vogue Italia a "modern anthropologist".
MUDDY DANCE, ERIK KESSELS
from 22.10 to 8.11
Exhibition curated by ADCI Art Directors Club Italiano10:30 – 19:45
ADI Design Museum
Muddy Dance is an exhibition that celebrates the football movement. The players seem to perform a choreographed dance on a muddy field, tumbling and rolling in search of the ball... or not? This is an exhibition about football for lovers of art and design and, at the same time, an exhibition for all football fans.
In Muddy Dance, Erik Kessels proposes a new gesture of re-appropriation of vernacular photography. Move the attention of the images from the ball to the movement: by erasing the ball from each shot, it transforms the game actions into spontaneous choreographies.
Muddy Dance by Kessels brings to the fore the beauty of players' movements and transforms this popular sport into a real art form.
The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.
ERIK KESSELS
22.10
Talk with Erik Kessels18:30
ADI Design Museum
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This event will be held in English.
