XXX

XXX


CREDITS

GUP Author

GUP TEAM


Artist

kinecka.com

Title

XXX

Format

Softcover / 160 pages / 212 x 270 mm

Price

€38

Dutch photographer Bob Siers (1990) was sixteen when he first experienced the nightlife of Amsterdam. The red light district, and all its stereotypes of sex and drugs, enchanted him. Now, 10 years later, something changed. He explains: “Years later, I moved to Amsterdam. I never managed to recapture the wild frenzy that we experience as young men.” In an effort to recreate the red light district as he saw it in 2006, rather than 2016, he produced his photo book XXX: Photographs from 2006 2016.

Siers’ photographs are a documentation of seedy clichés, portrayed in the way the photographer recalls from his youth: flamboyant, adventuresome and enchanting. When looking through images of mysterious sex-objects, drugs, naked woman and obscure bar interiors, we are been taken on a wild journey into the photographer’s adolescent head.

The book’s design brings these stereotypical images to life by presenting them in basic yet dynamic layouts. Full-bleed printed pages are filled with playful cut-outs of black and white photographs, collages of images crammed together, and alternating white pages with often just one or two photos.

While some photos were taken in situ, many of the ‘objects’ have been photographed in a studio, placing a clear focus on one remarkable thing, like the seductive gaze of a stripper, or a fist formed dildo. Through this, the images are realized like an unsharp memory, the world around an object has vaguely disappeared.

By including mostly black and white photographs, alternated with colour images shot with several analogue cameras, Siers creates a kaleidoscopic collection of portraits and stills that make us experience the excitement he did when discovering the flamboyant party scene as a sixteen-year-old boy. The book gives an insight into his personal memories of a collectively well-known subject, and therefore takes a surprising approach on the red light district’s clichés.

For the book XXX Photographs from 2006 – 2016, Bob collaborated with Sebastiaan Hanekroot of Colour & Books and designer Amir Avraham.The photographs are on exhibit at CLOUD Gallery in Amsterdam till October 12, 2016.