A carefully framed, fictitious situation which is, however convincingly real, is Edwin Zwakman’s answer to the over-whelming stream of images inundating us every day and simulating (as with the CNN broadcasts of the Gulf War) a reality which more often than not, proves to be a lie. Zwakman, on the contrary, resorts to tricks and fabricates lies in order to tell uncomfortable truths. Although power and authority are barely suggested here, and only subtly represented trough their stereotypes, the effect is all the more powerful. For these stereotypes are omnipresent and have been etched deep in our collective memory. Juxtaposing them with each other in contradictory settings, Zwakman awakens hitherto un-defined, yet somehow familiar anxieties, as it were, from the interstice between one image and another, as though through cracks opening op to vision of a veritable abyss.
From: Brouwer, M. (2008) ‘Framing Reality’ in: Zwakman, E. ‘Fake But Accurate’ Amsterdam, Schirmer Mosel (p. 128).
Edwin Zwakman (1969, The Hague, the Netherlands) graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, NL in 1993 and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, NL in 1997. In 1992, he did an Erasmus Exchange with the Städelschule in Frankfurt/M, in the class of Prof. Thomas Bayrle. His work is in museum collections, public space and private and public collections in the Netherlands, USA, China and throughout Europe. Selected shows by Edwin Zwakman are: ‘Les Printemps de Haute Corrèz’, Center of Contemporary Art, Meymac, FR (2020) ‘The Model’, Collectie De Groen, Arnhem, NL (2020); ‘Vedute’, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, NL (2019); ‘Modelled Nature’ in Contemporary Photography (2019) Kallmann-Museum, Ismaning, DE; Ludwig Galerie, Saarlouis, DE & Stadtgalerie Kiel, DE; ‘Reality is not a Place II’, Neues Museum, Nürnberg, DE (2018); ‘Light Box’, Kunstmuseum Celle mit Sammlung Robert Simon, Celle, DE (2018); ‘Het trage lage Land’, Museum MORE Gorssel, NL (2018); ‘Time Space Architecture’, Cityscape Amsterdam, NL (2017); ‘Step into my Office’, Gimpel Fils Gallery London, UK (2016); ‘A Gathering: Memory and Reconstruction’, Pujiang Overseas Chinese Town Ten-years Public Art Project Shanghai, CN (2016); ‘A Place to be’, Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, NL (2015); ‘Reality is not a place’, AKINCI, NL (2014), ‘Las lágrimas de las cosas’, Centro des Artes Visuales Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, ES (2014); ‘Vanished Boundaries’, OCT Art Museum, Shanghai (with Liu Jianhua, curated by Zhuang Huan 2011); ‘HUG’, Theater in Motion, Beijing (2009); ‘Fake but Accurate’, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, NL (2008); ‘Iconic Target’, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (2007); Maison Européenne de la Photographie Paris, France (2006); ‘Fake but Accurate’, Gimpel Fils Gallery, London (2005); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Schiedam (2003); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2002); Taipei Biennial (2002) and more.
