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Joachim Koester is known for his ability to weave fact and fiction, reality and myth. Focusing on occurrences of mysticism and the occult as well as the more surreal moments from our cultural and social histories, Koester examines events in time that have become more than the sum of their parts.

Attempting to capture traces of what once was, Joachim Koester’s work functions as a kind of documentation of the past as well as a poignant commentary on what happens to the places that are left behind once these moments have passed. Carefully questioning narrative and identity, Koester uses the mediums of photograph and film to explore the ways in which our shared histories are established, and in the process to question how these mediums are, ultimately, ambiguous.

Joachim Koester (b. 1962, Denmark) is highly regarded as one of the most important conceptual photographers of his generation. He has had many critically acclaimed exhibitions, notably at the National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen), Bergen Kunsthall (Bergen), Turner Contemporary (Kent), BAC Beirut Art Centre (Beirut) MCA (Chicago), Musee d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris), PS1 (New York), Camden Art Centre (London), S.M.A.K. (Ghent), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City), The Power Plant (Toronto), and Astrup Fearnley Museum (Oslo). In 2005, Koester was included in the Danish Pavilion as part of the 51st Venice Biennale. In 2008, he was shortlisted for the prestigious Hugo Boss Prize. In 2013, he was awarded the Camera Austria prize for photography. His work can be found in public collections around the world, including MoMA (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), S.M.A.K. (Ghent), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) among many others.