Biography
Erik Kessels is a Dutch artist, curator and communication designer, with
great interest in art and photography. Erik Kessels is since 1996 Creative
Partner of communications agency KesselsKramer in
Amsterdam/London and has created campaigns for national and
international clients such as Nike, Heineken, Diesel, Oxfam, Vitra, Citizen M,
I amsterdam and The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel.
As an artist and curator Kessels has published over 100 books of his 're-
appropriated' ; images and has written the international bestseller Failed It!
and Complete Amateur. He has taught at several Art Academies (Amsterdam, Milan, Toronto,
Lausanne, Düsseldorf). Kessels made and curated exhibitions such as Loving Your Pictures, Mother
Nature, 24HRS in Photos, Album Beauty and Unfinished Father. Currently
he’s working on a long-term European art project called Europe Archive.
In 2010 Kessels was awarded with the Amsterdam Prize of the Arts, in 2016
nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Until 2022 his mid-
career retrospective is shown in Turin, Düsseldorf, Budapest, Rotterdam and
he exhibited recently in the SFMOMA. He was called “a visual sorcerer” by
Time Magazine and a “Modern Anthropologist” by Voque (Italia).
