Galería Elba Benítez

Joachim Koester

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962
Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark

Throughout his seductively nuanced work, Joachim Koester seeks to arrive at what he calls “condensed images” — images (in an expanded sense) that might not so much represent as draw on and ultimately channel qualities, concepts and conditions that lie somewhere beyond the confines of the work’s physical edges.

Koester’s work generally takes the form of an image-based, photo-centric investigation into those elusive and yet ineluctable aspects of consciousness and experience that are manifested in more intangible and ephemeral phenomena such as dreams, spirit presences, altered states of perception and non-verbal forms of communication. In addition, Koester often draws on the subject-matter of historical events in order to investigate the less tidy, non-linear narratives that underlie them.

Working with photography, film, text installation, literary sources, collaborative projects and sound art, Koester’s multidisciplinary practice seeks the blind spots in collective imagery, the disconnects and points of suspension in official discourse, the ambiguous intermediate zones between fact and fiction, truth and not-quite-truth, the banal and the uncanny. Koester himself describes this aspect of his practice as a kind of «ghost-hunting,» that points to «the twilight zone of what can be told and what cannot be told.»

Download artist’s CV

Cannabis #6, Cannabis #5, Cannabis #7
Joachim Koester. Cocaine #02, 2019
Joachim Koester. Cocaine #8, 2019
Joachim Koester. H. Grandis Aluminum, 2017
Joachim Koester. Miomantis, 2015
Joachim Koester. In the Face of Overwhelming Forces,... Camden Arts Centre, London, 2017
The way out is the way in, Kunsthalle... Mainz, 2020
Joachim Koester. The way out is the way in, Kunsthalle... Mainz, 2020
Joachim Koester. Bringing Something Back, Bergen... Kunsthall, 2018
Joachim Koester. Bringing Something Back, Bergen... Kunsthall, 2018
Joachim Koester. In the Face of Overwhelming Forces,... Camden Arts Centre, London, 2017
Joachim Koester. In the Face of Overwhelming Forces,... Camden Arts Centre, London, 2017
Joachim Koester. The Other Side of the Sky, Turner... Contemporary, Kent, 2016
Joachim Koester. The Other Side of the Sky, Turner... Contemporary, Kent, 2016
The Ghost Shop, Camera Austria, Graz, 2014
Joachim Koester. Hacer cuerpo con la máquina: Joachim... Koester, Blueproject Foundation, Barcelona, 2015
Joachim Koester. The Ghost Shop, Camera Austria, Graz, 2014
Joachim Koester. Reptile Brain, or Reptile Body,... It’s Your Animal, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013
Joachim Koester. Reptile Brain, or Reptile Body,... It’s Your Animal, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2013
Maybe One Must Begin with Some... Particular Places, S.M.A.K., Gent, 2012
Joachim Koester. Of Spirits and Empty Spaces, IAC... Institut D’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, 2011
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