Casper Faassen

Casper's unique style, mixing photography and painted layers in his work and juxtaposing subject (beauty) with form (decay), has gained praise from critics as well as the public. His work has been exhibited at numerous international art fairs such as AIPAD New York, Photo London, Unseen, PAN Amsterdam and Photo Basel where he won the ALPA Award in 2019. His work is featured in private as well as public collections such as the Frans Hals Museum (Haarlem), Museum de Lakenhal (Leiden), Haagsch Historisch Museum and the Dutch Royal Library (The Hague). Recently, Fotografiska Museum in Stockholm and Japanmuseum Sieboldhuis in Leiden hosted solo exhibits of Faassen’s work. His ‘view on The Hague’ and ‘view on Dordrecht’ were featured next to Jan van Goyen’s original masterpieces in the The Hague Historical Museum and the Dordrecht Museum respectively.

I met Casper when I was director of the Leiden Fund for Arts & Culture, him being one of the city’s young rising stars. We immediately clicked and, sharing vision as well as ambition, started to develop plans for a new cultural hotspot in the city. Casper encouraged me to pursue my dream of representing artists and after founding my practice joined almost immediately. Besides buying and developing real-estate together (realising our dream of a cultural centre), I was in charge of his management for over two years. I was in charge of all business aspects of his practice, helping him develop internationally and supporting him in navigating the tricky but fascinating field of visual arts. We ultimately decided to go separate ways when I started to focus on literature, although we still run Marktsteeg 10 together. The time working with Casper not only brought me a ton experience and a deeper understanding of artist representation, but also a dear friendship and a hunch that one day we will work together again.