Paul Cupido
Netherlands
7 Works exhibited on Kooness
Current location
Netherlands
Represented by
Categories
Works by Paul Cupido
Paul Cupido (1972) graduated with honors from the Fotoacademie Amsterdam in 2017. He since published a handful of books, including the artist’s publications Searching for Mu (2017), Continuum (2019) and 4 a.m. (2021) in collaboration with graphic designer Akiko Wakabayashi. Cupido’s work has been exhibited widely internationally, among others at Paris Photo, Unseen, and Nordic Light Festival. In 2017 he won the Hariban Jury Award. Cupido is represented by Bildhalle Gallery (Zurich & Amsterdam) and Danziger Gallery (New York City).
The photographic work of Paul Cupido revolves around the principle of Mu: a philosophical concept that could be translated as ‘does not have’, but is equally open to countless interpretations. Mu can be considered a void, albeit one that holds potential.
Cupido’s ongoing photographic and cinematic experiment Searching for Mu is at once a personal and universal odyssey of our fleeting existence in relation to the profound emotional experiences of love, time, and death. Instead of presuming to be documents, Cupido’s photographs point to transcendent reflections of the soul and of the intermingling of the microscopic and macroscopic.
Artist statement:
“I aim to engage with the world with wide-open senses. My work is about the magic moments of life as well as its inconveniences. I want to take pictures, while forgetting about the process of photography, until I’m saturated with an existential sense of life. Every step I take begins with
the notion of ‘mono no aware’: the transience of everything, the gentle melancholy of things, being sensitive to ephemera.”
Paul Cupido
Exhibitions (selection)
2021:
• Art Rotterdam, group show, Rotterdam (NL)
• Unseen, group show, Rotterdam (NL)
• Photo London, group show, London (UK)
• “Mizu”, group show, Ibasho Gallery, Antwerp (BE)
• Rencontres d‘Arles, Ibasho Gallery, Antwerp (BE)
• “Mukayu”, BILDHALLE, Amsterdam, (NL)
2020:
• “Mukayu“, Ibasho Gallery, Antwerp (BE)
• Paris Photo New York, BILDHALLE & Danziger Gallery, New York, (US)
• Paper Position Berlin, group show, Berlin (DE)
• “Fernweh”, group show, BILDHALLE, Zurich (CH)
• Nordic Light Festival, Kristiansund (NO)
• Photo London Digital, group show, London (UK)
2019:
• “Éphémère”, solo show, BILDHALLE, Zurich (CH)
• “Seaside”, group show, BILDHALLE, Zurich (CH)
• Paris Photo, group show, Paris (F)
• Photo Basel, group show, Basel (CH)
• Photo London, group show, London (UK)
• “Moments of Wonder”, solo show, Kahmann Gallery, Amsterdam (NL)
2018:
• “This Art”, group show, Beurs van Berlange, Amsterdam (NL)
• “Encontros da Imagem”, Discovery Awards 2018, Braga (PT)
• Festival Internacional de Fotografie Paraty em Foco (BR)
• Athens Photo Festival 2018, Benaki Museum (GR)
• Haute Photographie, Fotografiska, Stockholm (SE)
• Haute Photographie, Rotterdam (NL)
2017:
• New Dutch Photo Talent 2018, group show, GUP, Amsterdam (NL)
• Window of Wonder, group show, Tipi Bookshop, Brussels (BE)
• Photography and the Artist Book, group show, Atlanta (US)
2016:
• Tokyo Institute of Photography, group show, Tokyo (JP)
• Het Oog, group show, Amsterdam (NL)
Collections:
• Foam First Editions (NL)
• International Center of Photography, New York City (US)
• Van Lanschot Art collection (NL)
• Danziger Collection (US)
Books:
• Mukayu, 2020, the(M) éditions & Ibasho Gallery
• Amazônia, 2019, alauda publications/Bildhalle
• Éphémère 2019, Edition Bildhalle
• Continuum, 2019, Edition Bildhalle
• Senses, 2019, Y-Publisher
• Searching for Mu, 2017
Awards:
• 2020, BJP — Notable Photobooks of 2019 and BJP Cool + Noteworthy 2019 (UK)
• 2020, LensCulture, Favorite Photobooks of 2019 — Selected by Anaïs Lopez (NL)
• 2019, Jury Top Selection, GESTE Paris (FR)
• 2018, Finalist Discovery Awards, Encontros da Imagem (PT)
• 2017, Window Of Wonder, Tipi Bookshop (BE)
• 2017, New Dutch Talent (NL)
• 2017, Hariban Juror’s Choice Award — Selected by RongRong & Inri (JP)
• 2017, Artist Residence Winner Belfast Photo Festival (UK)