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Edwin Zwakman

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A carefully framed, fictitious situation which is, however convincingly real,
is Edwin Zwakman's (1969, The Hague) answer to the overwhelming 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 undefined, 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.

(Brouwer, M. (2008) ‘Framing Reality’ in: Zwakman, E ‘Fake But Accurate’ Amsterdam, Schirmer Mosel, p 128)
Edwin Zwakman had many international presentations, OCAT, the He Xiangning Art Museum in Shanghai together with Lui Jianhua (2011),  Huis Marseille Amsterdam, Netherlands (2008), Ludwig Forum Aachen, Germany (2007), Maison Européenne de la Photographie Paris, France (2006), Taipei Biennial (2002) and more.