Unseen is the leading platform for contemporary photography. Exclusively focusing on what’s new in the photography world, Unseen provides a channel for up-and-coming talent to showcase their work. Unseen brings together the international photography community to discuss and debate the directions in which the photographic medium is evolving.

Unseen is an all year round platform with physical events throughout the year with the main event Unseen Amsterdam returning for its seventh edition at the Westergasfabriek from the 21st to the 23rd of September 2018.

Unseen Amsterdam aspires to provide novel and diverse approaches to engage with photography. The event does this through combining programme elements such as the Fair, CO-OP, the Book Market and the Living Room, The Exhibition, Onsite Projects and City Programme.

www.unseenamsterdam.com

Unseen Amsterdam returns for its seventh edition to highlight the latest developments at the forefront of fine art photography. As a platform for emerging talent and artistic development, Unseen commissioned Japanese artist Kenta Cobayashi to create this year's campaign image. Unseen Amsterdam will take place from the 21st to the 23rd September of 2018 at Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek. The Unseen team is delighted to announce 53 participating galleries, the return of the artist-led CO-OP programme which will be showcasing diverse collectives from all over the world, and new exhibitions and initiatives exploring new directions in contemporary art. The 2018 international showcase will enable around 300 up-and-coming and established artists to present boundary-pushing and noteworthy work, much of which has never been seen before on the open market.

UNSEEN AMSTERDAM 2018 CAMPAIGN IMAGE

Each year Unseen Amsterdam selects a new artist to create a body of work for the official campaign of Unseen Amsterdam. In 2018, digital artist Kenta Cobayashi (1992, Kanagawa, JP) will be the face of Unseen’s leading event. The commissioned campaign series N-TOKYO illustrates Tokyo as a futuristic city in flux, conjuring imaginary visions of the city that may circulate in our perception.

For Cobayashi, Tokyo is characterised by a peculiar mix of fiction and reality. Growing up in this city, he encountered sci-fi references daily through comic books, anime and games. He says: “Tokyo is often used as the emblematic backdrop for futuristic stories. Through Japanese sci-fi classics, I grew up watching a variety of portrayals of the city in its imagined future forms. New technology and culture are key elements in consolidating a new shape of the city, but it also seems to me that it is undergoing a process of recreating a vision of the future, that has already been achieved in fiction. As if it’s chasing after the ideas that are depicted in the fantastical stories we, as citizens of Tokyo, were raised with.”

Inspired by the energy of the city, Cobayashi creates visually challenging, vibrant works. Through multiple digital interventions, Cobayashi distorts his visuals, exposing the authentic nature of the image as pixelated data, and thereby sculpting a new reality. In line with Unseen’s ethos in pushing forward the frontiers of the medium, Cobayashi’s way of working embodies a current discourse on the digital age within contemporary photography.

PARTICIPATING GALLERIES

Unseen announces the list of galleries participating in 2018's fair element of Unseen Amsterdam. Galleries are drawn from around the world, including countries such as Iran, Czech Republic, Mexico, Japan and The United States. The fair welcomes 18 new galleries this year to present their artists, offering visitors the most diverse experience yet.

New galleries include, Casemore Kirkeby (US) showing Sean McFarland (US) and Whitney Hubbs (US); JEDNOSTKA Gallery (PL) showing Weronika Gęsicka (PL) and Rafal Milach (PL) and Fotogalleri Vasli Souza (SE) showing Pixy Liao (CN). Returning galleries include Ron Mandos (NL) showing Jan Hoek (NL) and Aïda Mulunch (ET); G/P gallery (JP) showing Daisuke Yokota (JP) and Yuki Tawada (JP); LhGWR showing Nadine Stijns (NL) and Mustafa Saeed (SO) and Flowers Gallery (UK/USA) showing Edmund Clark (UK).

CO-OP

CO-OP is entirely devoted to artist-run collectives, enabling them to show their latest work, in dynamic presentations and new commercial formats. Recognising the significance of artists who unite to make and show work; this edition examines themes such as authorship, mass tourism, migrant stereotyping and education. 2018's international collectives – from Cameroon to Austria, the Ivory Coast to the Netherlands – are selected by Unseen and CO-OP’s curator Lars Willumeit.