(NETHERLANDS) is an artist, curator and communication designer from the Netherlands with a special focus on photography. Since 1996 Erik Kessels has been a communications partner at the agency KesselsKramer in Amsterdam/London and has created campaigns for national and international clients such as Nike, Diesel, J&B Whisky, Oxfam, Vitra, Citizen M, I amsterdam and The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel.As an artist and curator, Kessels has published about 75 books of his 're-appropriated' images: 'Wonder' (2003), the collection 'in almost every picture' (2001-2019), 'Shit' (2018) and 'Read Naked' (2019).
Since 2000 he has been editor of an alternative photography magazine called "Useful Photography" and wrote the international bestseller "Failed It!" He has taught at Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Amsterdam), Écal (Lausanne), Raffles (Milan) and at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture where he curated a celebration of amateur photography. Kessels curated exhibitions such as Your Pictures, Mother Nature, 24HRS in Photos, Album Beauty, Unfinished Father and GroupShow. He also co-curated an exhibition called "From Here on" with Martin Parr, Joachim Schmid, Clement Cheroux and Joan Fontuberta. In 2010 Kessels received the Amsterdam Prize of the Arts, in 2016 he was nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. Since 2019 his Carrera retrospective has been shown in Turin, Düsseldorf, Budapest and in 2019 he exhibited at SFMOMA. He was called a "visual wizard" by Time Magazine and a "Modern Anthropologist" by Vogue (Italy).